Baldur's Gate 3
D&D 5e faithfully, lavishly realized in a landmark RPG.
Review
Baldur's Gate 3 is a landmark. Larian Studios spent four years in Early Access refining a game that on launch was broadly regarded as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Built on a faithful and surprisingly fun adaptation of D&D 5th Edition rules — complete with dice rolls, skill checks, and the beautiful chaos of advantage and disadvantage mechanics — BG3 offers unparalleled player agency in a narrative that responds meaningfully to nearly everything you do.
The character creation system is the most extensive in any RPG, and the game's commitment to acknowledging every build, every choice, and every approach is extraordinary. You can talk your way through encounters, pickpocket critical items, push enemies off cliffs, use the environment creatively in every fight, or bring companions with conflicting loyalties into battle and watch them argue mid-combat. The branching narrative accommodates all of it.
The companion writing is exceptional: Shadowheart's arc from guarded zealot to self-determining woman; Astarion's from hedonistic predator to something far more complex; Gale's magical catastrophe; Lae'zel's cultural awakening. Each companion has a full origin story you can play, a romance arc, and dozens of hours of reactive dialogue. With 100+ hours per playthrough and wildly different experiences depending on your choices, Baldur's Gate 3 may be the most ambitious and successfully executed RPG ever released.
Strengths and Limits
- Unparalleled player agency — almost every approach is meaningfully supported
- D&D 5e rules are faithfully implemented and genuinely fun
- Companion writing is some of the finest character work in RPG history
- Fully voiced, 100+ hours of content with enormous replay variance
- Cooperative multiplayer lets up to 4 players share the campaign
- Received Game of the Year 2023 — a nearly unanimous critical consensus
- Act 3 suffers from noticeable performance issues, particularly in the city
- D&D rule complexity can be overwhelming for genre newcomers
- Some reactivity gaps exist in Act 3 compared to Acts 1 and 2
- Requires a reasonably capable PC — not a budget-friendly experience
Reader Fit
This review is written around fit: who should play it, what kind of session it rewards, and what friction might make it wrong for another reader. A high grade does not mean every player should buy it immediately. It means the game has a clear identity, a strong reason to exist, and enough craft to justify attention from the right audience.