I’ll admit it; I was one of those people who bought Baldur’s Gate 3 because of a sassy vampire. For weeks, I was bombarded with clips of a red-eyed, white-haired, sarcastic vampire named Astarion (voiced by Golden Joystick Winner Neil Newbon). As much as I love playing video games, the Protestant work ethic of my childhood does not. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve chastised myself for sitting down to play a game, rather than clean every surface in my house or go write another book. Then I downloaded Baldur’s Gate 3 (from here on out shortened to BG3) and found myself completely embroiled in a Dungeons & Dragons world I’d always wanted to try. The hyperfixation hit me hard, and I haven’t quite recovered; that’s a good thing.
Pretty quickly, I strayed from the path of Astarion. While Astarion has one of the most captivating and heart wrenching stories in the game, he’s not the only one. Depending on whether you create your own character (known lovingly in the community as Tav), or play as one of the preestablished origin characters, you will discover a different game every time. Narration styles change and different bits of the story are revealed, based on your choices. My first play through was a rush job, truth be told. I picked a “Tav” with standard settings, whom I lovingly referred to as Barbarian Barbie, and we were off. I rushed through the story, made bad decisions that affected me later in the game, and found myself heartbroken by the end of the game play. Now you might think that sounds like a bad experience. It wasn’t. I’m officially hooked.
BG3 isn’t like any game I’ve played before, and I suspect it is unlike any game I will play in the future. Every companion has a story, and every choice lets you reveal a little more or sends another character shuffling back to silence. For fans of combat strategy, dice rolling, and detailed stats and spell work, you are in luck. You’re more than welcome to play out each game like your very own personal D&D campaign. For those of us who are fascinated by story and want to fall into a fantasy world, welcome to the team. If you love random references to D&D, fantasy stories, and even other fun pop culture items (I found references to both It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Parks and Rec), you’ll find them here. I found myself falling unexpectedly in love with a wizard who enjoys info dumping, loves reading, and has a mullet. It doesn’t hurt that Gale of Waterdeep, the wizard in question, is voiced by the incredible Tim Downie. Now when I tell you this isn’t like any game I’ve played before, I also mean the mostly positive Fandom community surrounding the game. Not only has this game helped me rediscover my love of Tumblr, but my love of Fanfiction, head cannons, and fan theories. In the past two months, I’ve made new friends online. I’ve likely annoyed my spouse to distraction over side quests, new plot lines, and patch updates. I’m a writer of Bloodweave fanfiction now (basically, the fantasy pairing of Astarion with the Wizard, Gale).
At almost 40 years-old, you’d think that I would be embarrassed. I’m most decidedly not. After a difficult past few years of finding myself falling away from my favorite fandoms, it’s a joy to find complicated characters, actors who not only adore their fans but encourage them, and a whole new community of creatives joined together in their enjoyment of something.
I deeply hope that Larian Studios keeps making games like this, and that the success of BG3 does something to jumpstart other videogame companies to invest in story, character development, and choose to put gamers over the promise of microtransactions and cheaply made DLCS at premium prices.
