Writing about BALDUR’S GATE 3 feels fraught. It's a dense game with so many moving and interlocking parts that it feels like an unfair reduction to attempt writing about it in the number of words I am able/willing to dedicate to it. I think what struck me about the game is that, for better and worse, it bends to the player in a way that one might desire a solo-Dungeons and Dragon campaign to do so.
I find myself loving BG3’s bigness, budgetness, and willingness to let players solve the problems it presents in a multiplicity of ways. But at the same time, these lead me to make unfavorable comparisons to Larian Studios’ own IP: DIVINITY: ORIGINAL SIN 2, the game that almost certainly pegged them as the It-Kids to develop BG3. D:OS2 is a game that, while maybe not as polished in some respects, is also unfettered by the Dungeons and Dragons license.
A clear case is something that is so piddly, I cannot help but feel ridiculous for caring about it, yet I mention this to anyone who asks me what I think of BG3. I HATE clicking on a D20 die in the game. I do not want to click on a stupid, digital die, nor do I really want to see it represented in the game, particularly when most of the dice you ‘roll’ in BG3 are obfuscated from view, as is customary in video game adaptations of tabletop role-playing game systems. Now this is not to say I do not like crunch and cruft. I LOVE seeing the numbers, feeling tactility in my game mechanics, and being rewarded for engaging with these systems deeply, but the D20 that I must click in order for it to animatedly roll feels like something that a person who gets paid way too much by Wizards of the Coast brought up in a playtesting session because it will ‘help players FEEL like they are playing D&D.’
Completely unserious.
All this to say, the game is very good and I encourage you to play it!