M. Weald

The amount of fun I’m having playing the video game Baldur’s Gate 3 reminds me of when I first played Dragon Age: Origins way back in 2009. BioWare seemed to have poured its collective heart and soul into developing DA: O back in the day, even if BioWare’s more recent entries have been a tad more hit or miss for me. I know I’ve put well north of a hundred hours and multiple playthroughs into DA: O. It truly felt like a tabletop roleplaying game akin to Dungeons and Dragons distilled into video game form. Its free use of a pause system made it’s combat turn-based adjacent, and the setting was one familiar to any fan of high fantasy with ample quirks and flairs to make it unique, a testament to David Gaider’s work. The companions were a particular highlight. I did a Morrigan romance in my main campaign. Who doesn’t love a shapeshifting witch of the wilds? Even if she did need a bit of an introduction to empathy. Pragmatic to a fault that one. I gotta give a shout out to my boy Alastair as well, ex-templar and rightful king. And Leliana. In any case, I seem to have gone a bit afield. Point is, as much fun as I had playing Dragon Age: Origins, Baldur’s Gate 3 seems to be eclipsing it.

All of the strengths I mentioned above with regards to DA:O are just as applicable to BG 3, with even more besides given BG 3 actually takes place in the D&D universe known as the Forgotten Realms. As someone who currently DM’s a weekly D&D campaign, Larian somehow managed to capture the most of elusive of things: the absolute chicanery and chaos that comes from a table of friends letting their imaginations run wild. The amount of leeway the developers give the players to sweet talk or intimidate or outwit only to have their plans quite rudely interrupted by a natural 1 rolling of the die resulting in unintentional murderhobo is D&D at its zaniest. I’m currently playing a longbow focused wood elf beast master ranger who sends his tanky bear Ursa into the fray while expertly cutting down marked prey from afar. Ursa is best bear and I can’t wait for Ursa to get an armored hat. The eternally gloomy Shadowheart, the earnest and unintentionally hilarious Lae’zel, and the loquacious yet distant mage Gale round out my typical crew. I’m in the middle of Act 1 and swap out Lae’zel for Wyll or Astarion depending on the questline. With how long it has taken me to get as far as I have, I can only imagine how many hours are going to get sunk into this game. Here’s to hoping I can stay productive with all the other things I want to do. And now, back to Baldur’s Gate to sneak into a goblin camp.

All the best,

M. Weald

P.S. I would be amiss not to mention that my character’s name is Cheeseburger. My first ever D&D character was a ranger named Cheeseburger with a wolf companion named Fries. My DM loved me…