When everything is done right

At university, between the geeky atmosphere of D&D comics, computers, videogames and people that loves stories, I was told about Baldur's Gate, and was give Baldur's Gate 2 to try. Later on I also played Baldur's Gate, and a bit of Neverwinter Nights 2.

I didn't finish any of them. While they were indeed very nice games, I found them hard and overwhelming, with too many people coming at you and asking you to do quests. The characters, though seemed quite nice, and the atmosphere and style of play was certainly fun. It seems to me it took too long for me to advance much and found the good/evil alignment present in the game a tad simplistic and somehow didn't quite catch me enough to finish them. It's hard to describe, they were nice games but also not so easy to play them, somehow? 

One factor for sure was the combat, real-time based with the option to pause. Combat tended to get very chaotic very fast, having to just pause constantly or just letting chaos ensure. There were also a lot of options and it wasn't very clear what builds were good or not, in my opinion. Anyway, the point is that I played them a bit, thought they were cool but not good enough to finish, somehow. 

So, years and years later, the announcement of Baldur's Gate 3 didn't impress me at first. However, after the first 2 Baldur's Gate games I did play other rpgs with similar style, like Pillars of Eternity. I really loved Pillars of Eternity, seemed to me that game did the same as BG and BG2 but did it correctly, and one of the best points of that game was the reputation system, which I haven't seen it done as well anywhere else. Anyway PoE pre-conditioned me to being more accepting of the style, so when there were more news about BG3 coming out I did check it a bit. And what I saw impressed me.

First, the studio: Larian Studios is an independent studio, they make their own games the way they want them with no interference from a bigger publisher or mother company, like it's commonplace at the moment. So, they have a certain vision and can stick to it. They had experience in other RPGs, turn-based, and everyone said they were really good too, although I had not played them. They are European-based, there's even an office in Barcelona, they seem to treat their employees well and try to respect people. In a year where big companies have fired thousands just so they can claim profits to their shareholders, the approach Larian seems to be having is certainly refreshing.

Then, the process: They've been developing the game for years, and there has been a public beta going on where the input of players has been taken into account as the game progressed. They've been re-releasing better and better versions until they were satisfied with the result and then released the game, focusing on the devices that worked and not stressing about making one single global release or anything like that.

Then the acting: They've gotten really really good actors, charismatic, really good at their job,and they've dedicated a lot of resources in recording lines and lines and acting them out, fleshing out the characters with the help of the actors and the team, and really taking care of getting the right expressions and voices at each moment.

Regarding the gameplay, instead of real-time combat, since this is D&D roleplaying, the devs had done it in a turn-based system. That was reassuring, and it made sense, a lot of powers and skills are meant for turns, converting them to real-time was more complex than just leaving them as they were. With turn-based you can calmly plan what you're doing, check the orders, and create strategies for each combat and try different things.

The graphics look very vey good, especially considering the massive areas the game has, and the character design and details are very well thought. Maybe there's games with better graphics, but with so many characters and combinations it's perfectly fine if the game still looks like a game, although the character's expressions are very detailed and communicate their feelings very well. 

Finally, the story and the quests: It seems they polished these to absurd amounts. The moment I saw some videos about the game, I saw the liberty they were given to the player. You could use your skills talking with people or interacting with the world, you could jump, you could fly, you cold throw things, you could do quests in a thousand of ways, and the game let you try them and also was prepared for it. 

So, I had to get it. And I did. And it's one of the best games ever. All the things I've mentioned come together into such a work of art, of love, of inspiration, where people did their best and offered their best that you can feel it while playing. I mean, it's not perfect 100%, there's a few things that have issues or could be improved, and in then end it's D&D, with its shortcomings of being very battle-focused, but anyway, this game is almost perfect, it's a glorious example of what to do when doing games. 

The game also offers cross-platform and multiplayer. The cross-platform is especially impressive, you can save your game in the cloud and then play form your pc, ps5 o xbox, as long as you have the game in each one of these systems. This means buying the game twice, but I confess I did just that, I was so impressed by them after playing a bit on my pc first that I thought they deserved it, and I've played in my pc and my ps5 at different moments. 

What is impressive is the sheer amount of combinations that are allowed, pre-thought and codified inside the game itself, with dialogue included to address them all. It needs to be experienced, but there's one case I saw which I will explain:

In the first act of the game, you find two camps, a druid camp with refugees inside and a goblin camp that is attacking the refugees and druids. Plot-wise, it makes sense to fight the goblins, since they're working for the big bads of the game, but you're given liberty about how to act. The druids have one good leader missing and the second-in-command is an asshole, that wants to basically kill the refugees living with them and perform a magic ritual that will isolate the druid camp from the rest of the world, to protect themselves from the goblins. 

So, my first though is that I wanted to save the refugees, and maybe some druids, but wanted to kill the second-in-command. But most games are binary, so its either one camp or the other, and the first times I played I just killed the goblins, where you get a lot of freedom since you can infiltrate them first and talk with several characters there and get info and do quests as well. Anyway, after the first time I revisited, and tried to side with the goblins up to a point where I was supposed to betray the refugees and it was too evil for my taste, so I ended up killing the goblins again anyway. So I played a third time. And the third time I discovered an option where you propose to the refugees to kill the bad druid. And you do, but then I was found out, and refugees and druids started to kill each other in a massive fight. And then the goblins came and congratulated me for this, but I didn't do it, it was accidental! But that the option that I really wanted was there was quite refreshing, and that this scenario was not talked in any of the guides I was checking to see options speaks of the level of detail this game has, most people may not even know this is a possibility, especially for "evil" play-throughs in which you don't want to slaughter the camp straight away.

Things just get more complex from there, with entire plot points being different depending on what you did and what characters survived, like the fact that one evil character that I just killed at first can be a companion later on depending on these same actions. 

In general the "Good" options are more polished, with less bugs, I guess because more people were selecting them and reporting issues, but the "Bad" options are still quite complex and different and there's just so many paths you can follow to your objective...

The game is actually pretty hard. In normal difficulty, if you just barge into fights unprepared, unequipped and don't use the right skills, you will die and die fast. You need to think carefully and plan and anticipate, and sometimes to have a bit of luck too. Some endgame fights are especially challenging and unfair, especial mentions to the Shar practitioners fight (like, a 20 against 4 pileup) and the Raphael fight (this one is purely optional, being the hardest fight in the game, but the music and the epicness of it omg, it's a must to experience it....)

Another good point of the game is that it just trashes the "Good"/"Bad" system and instead you have more or less affinity with your companions. Being bad once does not prevent you from doing good later, and in general you're just tied to your stats, but you're free to investigate options and do things anyway you want. It's also worth mentioning that thanks to the writing and the acting, the characters feel alive an deep, they do feel like your companions and you want to help them and progress the plot with them. Especial mention to the main actors, that have seen a lot of well-deserved success thanks to BG3 and all the interactions they're having with fans, their streaming of playing with themselves and in general being great people.

Finally, what they did with the support deserves another comment: They just keep improving the game and releasing new content. I mean, at a certain point maybe it's too much, but they added an epilogue, they improved several key functionalities that players complained about, they fixed bugs, changed texts, clarified things and in general just kept adding to the game, even when everyone had already bought the game.  

It's no surprise they've won "Game of the year" in every contest they've participated, it's that good, yes.

And as a last note, this is what happens when everything is done right, and when people make games thinking about the players, about what they would like to play themselves, about having fun, and about being fair and good and treating their employees fairly.

If more companies were doing things like this, the game industry would be much better...