Good games make you want to write an article about them. That happened recently when I playedPseudoregalia, a Titanfall/Zelda mashup (believe me, it works). I did the same forViewfinder. It happens a lot with brilliant indies that I know won’t traffic too well, but I absolutely must write about them. So go ahead, click those links, make a small dev’s day.
Baldur’s Gate 3has possessed me. As much as I love playing Larian’s sprawling RPG, I think I love writing about it more. Every conversation seems to trigger new ideas in my head, every new discovery a potential new article to write or thread to follow. I’m about ten hours in and I haven’t even made it to the Goblin Camp yet, but I’ve written six articles about the opening. Make that seven now. It’s just that good that it inspires me to write article after article about every niche interaction or clever mechanic I come across.
Related:I Spent Hours On My Baldur’s Gate 3 Character And Then Ruined Her With An Ugly Hat
The same goes for my colleagues, I’m sure. Few games have gripped us all in this way, and I can sense their palpable excitement as we discuss angles, fire pitches into Slack channels, and discuss our latest escapades in Faerûn. We’re all making very different decisions in our playthroughs and, while I’m behind most of my colleagues (except Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley who’s waiting for the console release, the chump), we’re enjoying the game in our own ways and at our own paces.
Fellow Features Editor Tessa Kaur can’t stop thinking ahead to theirDark Urge playthrough, to the point where I think they should cut their losses and start over.They were thinking about it anyway, in fairness. Andrew King, another of our Features Editors, believes that thebrain worms are key to Baldur’s Gate 3’s success, and I’m inclined to agree with him.
Our team lead Jade King has nearly as many thoughts as me, going as far asupgrading her PC to make the game run better(fortunately this is a problemI resoundingly didn’t have). She also loves how the gamecelebrates nudityas a form of queer expression, despitenot being nearly as horny as Larian wants her to be. Stacey also wrote aboutthe game being like Taylor Swift, for some reason. We get it, you saw her concert.
I didn’t write this article just to highlight a bunch of excellent criticism from TheGamer’s features team, but that’s a lovely byproduct. I’m saying that games like this come around once a decade, if that. This game has inspired all of us in different ways that only we can explain, and it’s made me want to be a better writer in more ways than one.
Firstly, the basics. The writing and dialogue in Baldur’s Gate 3 is excellent. The humour doesn’t hit home quite as well as its predecessors for me, but the stories it tells, particularly between your character and your party members, are sublime. When I write fiction in my free time, I want my conversations to flow this well, to explain complicated premises so simply, and to draw people in with such confidence.
The fact the world reacts so fluidly to your creativity also inspires me. My mind works differently after just a dozen hours in Faerûn. I solve problems in different ways, I don’t go for the straightforward option like I might in a Bethesda RPG where there are likely few alternatives. I want to create stories where the protagonists overcome hurdles in ways you’d never have expected and their decisions, even if made for good reasons, mess up their plans in a major way.
But mostly, Baldur’s Gate 3 makes me want to be a better critic. When a game is this good, I want to elevate my criticism to meet it. I want to give it the thought it deserves. This is not a game you go into lightly, this is not a game that you can play half-heartedly, so why should it be one where I write silly little blogs about it? That’s enough for some games, but I want to do better for Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’m still in the first act.
Sure, I’m still documenting the tales of my stupid hat, which I’m pretty sure has been cursed, but I’m trying to think more deeply about things too. It’s easy to think more on the stories the game tells, but I’m trying to understand how it works mechanically, and what’s going on under the hood to make it so much fun. More importantly, I’m trying to understandwhy. Why does it feel goodwhen you roll the die? Why do I appreciate thesmall Scouse presenceso much? Why should this game force other triple-A studios toraise their standards? Why is this hat ******* cursed?
I don’t know if I’m succeeding in my goal, but I’m trying. And it’s a credit to everyone at Larian, not just the writers, that its game makes me want to do this. Baldur’s Gate 3 is fun, Baldur’s Gate 3 is chaotic, but, most importantly, Baldur’s Gate 3 is inspiring.
