Our author Schuhmann has now started Baldur’s Gate 3 for the third time (PC, later also XBox Series X, PS5). Only when he found the right hero for himself during character selection did he enjoy the role-playing game. He is precisely the hero, The Dark Urge
, that many warn about.
Warning: Spoilers. The article contains information about the first 3 to 4 hours of the game.
This is how I experienced Baldur’s Gate 3: I tried Baldur’s Gate in early access in 2020. The spark just wouldn’t ignite.
I found the beginning story totally exaggerated: dragons and mind flayers, epic air battles at level 1. It was all too much and too far removed for me.
I could hardly get out of the eye-rolling: Oh, look, level 1 and in the background, a tentacle creature and a devil are battling each other while a dragon is burning everything.
Even before heading into the druid’s grotto, I lost interest; I found nothing exciting about the game: Especially since I was playing a faceless, self-created character who had only silently trudged through the story up to that point, while a warrior and a brain with legs were the main characters.
I was also annoyed by the feigned urgency that screams at you in the first minutes of the game: “Hurry up, the larva in your head can go off at any moment and turn you into a tentacle monster.”
I decided that my time for such games was long past. Baldur’s Gate 3 might have fit my self from 25 years ago, but not anymore with the current one. I hadn’t thought about Baldur’s Gate 3 for 3 years.
On the second attempt, a few days before release, I tried again to warm up to Baldur’s Gate 3. I created my own character and went through the pompous story again, encountered faceless companions yet again, and again, just before the grotto, I lost interest.
When I pulled a wizard from a portal, I felt like I already knew everything: So I meet a cold-blooded warrior, a worried cleric, and an apparently absent-minded wizard in the first minutes and we are all telepathically connected because we have thought worms in our brains. Meanwhile, red dragons are burning a thought airship, and I am stranded in the wilderness, all at level 1.
Okay.
Baldur’s Gate 3 felt like a game from much earlier
Why did the beginning annoy me so much? I played Baldur’s Gate 1 25 years ago and it impressed me back then, but the game has become worse in my memory over the years.
I haven’t thought about Baldur’s Gate 1 for years; it was a game for which I had hardly any positive memories left.
This is what I still knew about Baldur’s Gate:
- You played as a “faceless hero” who somehow wanted good.
- You started somewhere in the wilderness and only later arrived in the big city.
- The mechanics were old-fashioned and there was an insane amount of text to read.
- The battles felt “gimmicky” and you had to know the obscure rules system of Dungeons and Dragons well to exploit “unfair synergies” to win.
In the first hours, Baldur’s Gate 3 strongly reminded me of the “Baldur’s Gate” of old: a pale hero in an exciting story with outdated mechanics.
Only that it started completely exaggerated and I was carrying a ticking time bomb in my head, which was new.
Only when I took a pre-made hero did the spark ignite
This has changed: In my 3rd run, at release, I didn’t create my own hero, but chose one of the pre-made origin heroes: “Dark Urge”, a character who constantly wrestles with himself. Here, it intrigued me that I could choose class and race. After reading an article about the Oathbreaker Paladin, I definitely wanted to try that.
In doing so, “The Dark Urge” is precisely the hero that many warn about.
Again, I played the beginning, but something was different this time.
With the wizard I could pull from the portal, there was suddenly the option: Imagine tearing his hand off. And when my hero came to again, he had actually turned that fantasy into reality and I found a severed hand in my inventory.
And from that moment on, something clicked for me. I suddenly found my character with his strange situation, not knowing anything about his past, but having these crazy ideas in his head, interesting. I continued playing the story.
I don’t want to spoil here, but: It was worth it.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is not the successor of Baldur’s Gate, but of Planescape Torment
I have now understood why the game caught me the 3rd time: Baldur’s Gate 3 is a trickster. For the game is not the “successor in spirit of Baldur’s Gate 1”, but of the best D&D role-playing game, Planescape Torment. I discovered that game a few years after Baldur’s Gate and still consider it a great game, which I often reminisce about:
- In Planescape Torment you play a man without memory and without name.
- The companions around you all have a dark secret that you unravel over time.
- And the game is far from the classic “sword & staff” atmosphere that characterized Baldur’s Gate 1 back then: The first character you meet is a chattering skull.
How Planescape Torment differs from Baldur’s Gate 3: Planescape started much more quietly and only gradually confronted you with the “crazy side” of the universe. Baldur’s Gate 3 immediately launches into the crazy power fantasies.
Planescape Torment is considered a milestone in PC role-playing history:
After an hour, Baldur’s Gate 3 changes the pace
This is why I found Baldur’s Gate 3 exciting: Also in Baldur’s Gate 3, there was suddenly the fascination: Who am I actually?
The previously so pale main character was now exciting, because I was not only trudging through the outer plot with her, but she was also fighting an exciting inner conflict.
And the completely exaggerated opening sequence cools down relatively quickly and becomes a much more intimate drama, in which I am genuinely interested in the companions and their secrets.
The initial hysteria to get rid of the brain worm also eventually subsides.
On top of that, Baldur’s Gate 3 gives me a freedom in gameplay to solve problems that is really new and innovative. And there is just so much to discover in the game.
In hindsight, I am glad I gave the game – despite all my initial aversion – one more chance.
Twitch: Scene in Baldur’s Gate 3 scares streamer because it just won’t stop
