Baldur’s Gate 3 is overwhelming for many. So much so that they don’t even start it. A big mistake, thinks MeinMMO demon Cortyn and explains what you are missing.
That Baldur’s Gate 3 is a great game that everyone should play at least once is something I don’t need to tell anyone anymore. It is a huge RPG with countless possibilities and different options for how the story can unfold. Many report that a single playthrough takes 150, 200, or even more hours of gameplay.
But it is exactly this scope that is not only fascinating but also intimidating for many. In my circle of friends, I have some passionate gamers who are actually “afraid” of Baldur’s Gate 3.
“Isn’t the game so huge that you spend weeks on it?” or “Don’t you have to be super careful to catch everything?” are questions I have heard more than once.
No wonder – even if you are not particularly interested in Baldur’s Gate 3, you stumble upon countless, page-long guides on the Internet with precise instructions on what you need to do or should do for a specific weapon or a very special scene.
What many overlook is: None of this is important. None of this is relevant to having fun in Baldur’s Gate 3. None of this is necessary if you just want to experience a good story that is consistent from start to finish.
If designer Anna Guxens from Larian says that you “shouldn’t be intimidated by the systems because they are designed so that you can always have fun with them,” then that is the plain truth. A truth that you have to accept as a gamer, at least for the first time (via gamereactor.eu).
Learning to Fail Again – Because It’s Part of It
We gamers can be exhausting sometimes, especially for ourselves. If there is an unopened box somewhere or a fight results in even minimal losses, we search the entire environment or reload to ultimately finish something “perfectly”.
However, this is exactly what hinders you in Baldur’s Gate 3. Because much in the game is decided by dice rolls. Only if you exceed a certain value will the respective action be considered successful; otherwise, it is deemed failed.
The twist is: This is exactly how it’s intended. Baldur’s Gate 3 has been designed with the idea that you will succeed brilliantly at times and fail miserably at others. In most cases, there is no “Game Over” because you failed a die roll. It has negative consequences – even if it’s just that an NPC doesn’t trust you or you can’t accomplish a certain action.
Things always move forward and often in very funny ways. Because seeing your own heroes fail from time to time makes them even more relatable and makes the glorious victories even sweeter and more significant.
Failing is simply a fixed, planned part of the gaming experience. The failure is not only intended; it is desired and intended by the developers. Because many dialogues and surprising turns only occur when you fail.
I don’t mean that you should “never reload.” We did that during our playthrough too, whenever we felt the game had treated us really unfairly.
To give a specific example: In a quest, you must protect the druid Halsin while he performs a ritual and is attacked from all sides. While my teammate protects the left flank with Shadowheart and his character, I hold the right flank with a wall of flames from my sorceress and Karlach’s melee abilities.
Once the battle ends, a cutscene starts immediately, Halsin thanks us for our help and wants us to meet him at the camp. The sequence ends and Halsin immediately starts walking – only to step right into my wall of flames within 2 seconds, moving in slow motion and basically dying instantly before I even had the chance to cancel the channeled spell.
That was a moment when we both said, “Okay, that’s just dumb. Let’s replay this scene.”
Not because we were dissatisfied with the outcome of a fight or a die roll, but simply because it felt unfair to see Halsin walk into the allied flames even before the sequence was fully completed.
With this approach, only repeating something in absolute exceptions, we not only had an immense amount of fun, but also experienced many scenes that we would probably never have seen in a “perfect” run with a guide.
A (spoiler-free) event of this kind happened in the second act of the game. After arriving at the inn, we extensively talked to all the NPCs, triggering several events. These ultimately led to the main story suddenly making a rapid advance.
From these conversations and the choices made, an epic battle ensued, with 20 to 40 fighters on both sides – a really long fight with “back and forth,” where we fought for the survival of every NPC and still couldn’t save them all.
It just felt good and right. During this process, we never noticed that we had missed some scenes because of this path. During the game, that was completely irrelevant. We only noticed it months later during our second playthrough – and those “new” scenes fascinated us just as much and increased the replay value even more.
Some may think here: “What! But then you missed great scenes while playing, and I don’t want that!” – And yes, you could see it that way. But it never felt that way to us. Because Baldur’s Gate 3 is so full of great scenes, decisions, and different paths that, in the flow of the game, you don’t even notice if you miss something here and there.
This pressure only arises when you read very carefully beforehand about what is available and how to see as much as possible. But then you miss, at least in my view, a lot of the appeal in an RPG of this scale and freedom.
Get a Move On and Learn Not to Get Everything
Ultimately, I can understand if Baldur’s Gate 3 seems intimidating and overwhelming because of its size. But that feeling only arises if you approach it with the mindset of wanting to experience this size in its entirety. You really don’t have to. It’s not even advisable.
If you haven’t done so yet, give Larian’s RPG a chance. Immerse yourself in the game world and let go of the idea that you must emerge victorious from every situation or master every die roll with flying colors.
It’s such a “gamer disease” to want to overcome every challenge and truly explore every last detail of the game world before moving on.
This only hinders your fun in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Yes, you can discover small secrets in many places, and if you focus on it, you’ll succeed in every die roll if you reload each time.
But that doesn’t make Baldur’s Gate 3 a better game; the opposite is true.
If the developers say you should just “go with the flow,” then that’s not a cliché – it’s something that has been incorporated into the game design.
The vast scope of Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t seem so intimidating anymore when you free yourself from the thought of wanting to experience everything in one playthrough. That is ultimately not even possible and only leads to thinking more about a “To Do” list than about the grand story with lovable characters and lots of great twists.
Twists that only occur if you don’t play “perfectly.”
Get a move on and let yourself be carried away by the game. You certainly won’t regret it.
