Shortly before the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, the developers gave us access to the full game. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus has taken a detailed look around (once again) and has already found and dealt with his personal nemesis.
Penis. There, please, I said it. Satisfied? When we finally received the press version of Baldur’s Gate 3, my first step was to the character editor. Just out of curiosity to see what crazy possibilities there are.
After all, the character’s genitals can be freely customized, which is why I immediately had to find out: What options are there? The result: Humans and elves have more penis and vulva options than others. Disappointing, but overall okay.
Now that we’ve got the obligatory part behind us, I want to finally get to my actual story. Since Monday, I’ve been allowed to take a look at the full version of Baldur’s Gate 3 with a special press build. Of course, that’s not enough to thoroughly test such a massive game.
In Baldur’s Gate 3, so much crazy stuff happens back-to-back that I had difficulty deciding on an anecdote. The one with that damn witch has occupied me the longest. And by Lolth, the game knows how to make such situations special!
Warning: I will try to keep the text as spoiler-free as possible. Nonetheless, be warned: my impressions may contain at least some information from the first act! Here’s a bear sex scene to distance from the experience report:
I do evil things and… the companions like it?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a role-playing game that strongly focuses on telling the stories of unique and powerful personalities. We are one of them. In character selection, there are 12 classes available, which can be combined later in the game.
In addition to your own character, there are the 7 “Origins”, meaning characters that have a pre-set story that is told in the world. I opted to play a mad bloodthirsty murderer who can rarely suppress his urges.
I actually thought I would be very alone very quickly with that. But Larian, the developers of Baldur’s Gate 3, somehow have an even darker sense of humor than I do. No matter what I do, no matter how evil I am: somehow my group always approves.
In one situation, a wizard is to be rescued from an unstable portal and reaches out his hand in desperation. As the “Dark Urge”, I only had the option to brutally chop off the hand instead. Two people from my party liked that. From then on, my very crazy journey began.
The feud begins: “The left or the right eye?”
The main quest of Baldur’s Gate 3 is to get rid of a disgusting parasite that can grant strange powers. The cost, however, might be becoming an upright walking octopus with a tentacle face. I’m not up for that.
A possible cure is promised by a witch, or hag. D&D players might know these beasts as “Hag”. They are essentially swamp witches who offer “help” but always demand absurd counter-performance.
My hag wanted one of my eyes. Since I was already on the completely mad path, I agreed. The result:
- She stabs her claw into my eye and pulls it out.
- She kisses the eye and puts it back into my skull.
- Now I have a cloudy eye and a bonus to intimidation but a penalty in fights against hags.
I expected definitely worse. But the bill was to come later, as she could not remove my parasite. Still, she claimed to have held her part of the agreement. Since I disagreed, a legal dispute ensued.
Without combat: Sometimes a simple shove is the solution
I fought my way through a dungeon afterwards for hours that is actually above my level. Baldur’s Gate 3 allows for completely unconventional approaches.
In my case, this meant that I simply murdered a guard from behind instead of getting caught in a big fight, and robbed the witch before the fight. Then I surprised her on a bridge.
Still, she easily defeated me in direct combat for another 2 hours, despite excellent planning. At some point, the saving idea came to me: I don’t actually have to fight her.
Since she is standing on a bridge anyway, I simply placed my strongest character in front of her and used the special ability “Push”. The witch sailed into the dark hole before she could fight back, I won, and I can finally continue my killing spree in peace.
This is how it all ended
The end of the quest is strangely even more bizarre because I was originally supposed to rescue a young woman too. But she wasn’t as grateful as I thought. She wanted the witch to bring back her husband.
As a D&D veteran, I already knew that this wouldn’t go as she wished. He would have come back as a zombie, half rotten and without a brain. That’s exactly what happened when I found the wand that was supposed to bring this about.
This shows how morbid the game can be at times: the young woman, perhaps in her early 20s, gratefully took the wand and her zombie husband to start a new life in Baldur’s Gate. Don’t ask…
New to Baldur’s Gate and RPGs? The ideal class for you is the fighter:
Creative solutions instead of stressful boss mechanics
What made this quest so special for me is that I didn’t expect all this to happen. I actually just intended to take a look at what happens – and then reload the game. After all, I want to keep my eyes.
The dialogue and the resulting possibilities were so exciting that I thought: Oh come on, explore a bit more
. Eventually, the save would have gone so far back, and I liked the story so much that I kept it all. This has happened to me more frequently while playing now.
On top of that, the fight reminded me that I am not playing Dark Souls or something like that here. I don’t have to learn mechanics or prepare for fights by finding the right poison and spell against the boss. I just need to find a way to avoid preparation – like a cliff.
Such situations exist in Baldur’s Gate 3 in droves:
- Instead of picking a lock, I can also break the door down or stack boxes to climb over a nearby wall.
- Does an NPC charge me too much money for his goods? I’ll just steal it back.
- If the druid in my group isn’t strong enough for a long jump, he simply transforms into a cat and lets himself be thrown over the abyss by the barbarian.
“Oh, I think I’ve defeated you”
At the end of the test, I played coop with MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski and colleague Sophia Weiss. The player experience here is completely different from solo since many more situations arise unplanned.
This started right away as Sophia almost knocked me out during the tutorial with her monk. With a thoughtless click, she dealt me a palm strike, and I was left with just one hit point, just before an important fight. For context:
- Sophia plays a monk, the best class in the game according to Larian
- I’m of course playing a fragile but genius bard who is supposed to sing and not fight
To prevent this from becoming a human resources case, editor-in-chief Leya simply stepped in shortly thereafter – as a majestic druid in bear form. Together we explored the world and almost died during the first major battle because the thick – uh, hefty – bear fell through a fragile spot right into a bunch of enemies that one would ideally fight separately.
You can find a more detailed review at GameStar. More information on multiplayer can be found here:
It is extremely hard to put into words what makes games like Baldur’s Gate 3 so good. Anecdotes like these best reflect why the RPG is unbelievably fun and why it will certainly keep me engaged for over 100 hours.
Such stories are not exception situations but happen all the time. They fit into the world, and depending on how you approach the game, you can have a completely different experience. What I can only advise everyone at the moment: don’t try to be too “good”. No one will thank you for that.
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