Baldur’s Gate 3has captured my wife’s attention in a way I’ve never seen a game manage before. She put in her time withAnimal Crossing: New Horizonsin early quarantine. She got into a management sim called Virtual Villagers on her phone for a little while, but that was mostly because it was a nostalgic game from her childhood. And we’ve played adventure games together like Her Story,Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, andReturn to Monkey Island. But she’s sitting down and playing Baldur’s Gate 3 for hours at a time. That’s new.
But the thing is, I also want to play Baldur’s Gate 3 for hours at a time. I have it on PC, but recently bought it on PS5 and that’s the version she’s been playing. It runs way better on console than my three year old laptop, so I don’t always want to play it on PC. So, a few nights ago, I got her playing on PC and now we can trade back and forth as needed.
There’s a concept in early childhood development called “parallel play.” It basically just means that, when children are young, they often do separate activities near each other. It’s an early form of play, where they don’t need to engage in cooperating or competing against their friend, but can participate in their own activity while spending time in close proximity to one another.
It’s a kind of interaction that I still value as an adult. WhenHorizon Zero Dawnwas new, I lugged my PS4 and a small TV over to a friend’s house and took down bandit camps while he blinked around Karnaca inDishonored 2. Similarly, my first full-time job out of college was at a daily newspaper. I typically worked six days a week, and the hours were inconsistent because I covered both news and sports, requiring I clock in both in the morning and at night. On my rare days off, I often just wanted to sit and play video games for hours at a time, and some of my favorite times from that period were playingBreath of the WildorStardew Valleyon the couch while my roommates played something else or watched It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Sometimes you just need to relax, do your thing, and feel like someone else is there for you, even if you don’t want to talk.
Marriage already involves a lot of parallel play. My wife is very crafty, so she’s often working on a project while I’m watching a movie. But playing Baldur’s Gate 3 together (even separately) was a different experience because we could stop and talk to each other about the game as we went. She’s much earlier into the campaign than I am (and was just getting used to the PC controls) so she would often pause and ask me questions, and I would offer advice on how best to survive the gauntlet the Goblin Camp becomes if you decide to rescue Halsin. When she’s making a dress or working on a stained glass piece, I don’t have much to offer. But with Baldur’s Gate 3, I fully understand the activity.
I don’t always want to play co-op, because I want to see my campaign to the end. By playing separately, we’re having our own, different kind of cooperative experience. And that’s nice.
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