This Holiday, I’m Learning To Love Baldur’s Gate 3

I have a hard time wrapping my head around just how open-ended scenarios can be in Baldur’s Gate 3 and adapting my character builds to maximize their current potential. I simply don’t know how to make Shadowheart stop missing every attack and have no idea what range I should play her at. My Tav, who’s a sorcerer as of now, is apparently an Eldritch Blast machine, which makes the fact that I’ve played him at close range till now kind of ridiculous. Really, the only thing that works as intended is Astarion, who makes up for his occasional misses by landing more successive critical hits than anyone else in my party at the moment. So sure, if he wants to bite me at camp, he’s earned the right. I might just be a dumbass, but this is all stuff I could iron out with time; time that I’m buying myself by surrendering my entire holiday over to this game and figuring it out.

I also just straight up lost a character. Lae’zel—the githyanki on the nautiloid in the very beginning—was straight up murdered in the road after the game gave me a few chances to save her. Without the guidance of one of my best friends, I wouldn’t have known I initially missed Gale either, but at least I was able to correct that one. I not only have to worry about getting good at the game, but optimizing my way through the world’s largest game.

Despite these frustrations and setbacks, I come across occasional moments of brilliance, whether its in the early turns of some of these characters plots or beats in the larger world, that fully envelop me. For example, the twist early on in Wyll’s storyline has me itching to plumb his story for further developments and luckily for me, an impromptu rescue mission I took into a burning building has prompted exactly that. A fight that I feel I definitely took far too early on—against a one-eyed monstrosity in the Underdark called the Observer Beholder—proved to be a thrilling gauntlet and my surviving it definitely signaled a turn in my understanding of the game’s mechanics and flow.  And then there’s Karlach, whose recruitment was the last significant beat I accomplished before setting the game down and who I simply think is very very neat.

Suffice to say, there’s a lot to unravel about this game and wrap my head around and I’ve evidently barely scratched the surface of Act I as is. It’s as tantalizing as it is frustrating, which is why I’ve put Baldur’s Gate 3 down as many times as I have and subsequently picked it back up. I feel like if I don’t take advantage of this break, I may never quite fall for the game the way that everyone else has and I really want to. I want to be head over heels for the game that’s enraptured the community like Elden Ring did last year. But whereas I felt on the forefront of that, I feel so behind now. I know what must be done though, and I tell you what: it’s a good thing the holidays are meant for catching up then. So long world, I’ve got a fantasy to sell myself on. I’ll see you on the other side.