This review is not for fans of Dungeons and Dragons, the older Baldur's Gate games, or Larian's other work. If you're in one of those camps, chances are you're gonna absolutely love this game and don't need me to tell you that. Instead, I'm writing for the people out there who, like me, never really vibed with CRPGs before but always hoped to someday. Maybe you, like me, saw its widespread critical acclaim and heard from all your friends how great it was and thought: "Okay, this will finally be the CRPG that clicks for me."

Well, I have good news: It was that game for me! I love Baldur's Gate 3. I just want to caution anyone coming from a similar background that it's got an absolutely hellish learning curve that you're gonna have to be patient and persistent with, but I really do think it's worth the effort.

For the first eight hours or so, I was very turned off by this game. I spent most of that time (no exaggeration) creating characters and feeling overwhelmed by the volume of systems, proper nouns, and seemingly binding decisions I had to make right at the outset of the game. (For context, I have little-to-no D&D experience, and BG3 definitely assumes you're already quite familiar with how D&D operates up-front.)

Once I got into the game itself, I found the interface very opaque and finicky; I nearly died multiple times because I accidentally walked over ground that was on fire, and I didn't understand why enemies would get a free attack on me when I was moving past them, to name a few examples. I also found the early influx of party members frustrating because I had to learn multiple classes at once rather than just focusing on the one I chose for my player character. In hindsight, I realize that the early levels for D&D characters are quite streamlined and simple, but between the complex-to-me UI and the (from my perspective) opaque integration of D&D's underlying systems, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated.

But around hour 10, something started to change. Partly, it was that I had spent enough time immersed in the game's early systems to start to understand what things like armor class and advantage/disadvantage meant, and I no longer struggled to differentiate between a primary and bonus action in combat.

But the biggest thing was — and this is kind of embarrassing — I started to notice the game does have tutorials after all. I just got an ultrawide monitor for the first time and, I dunno if my peripheral vision is bad or what, but I finally noticed the tiny tutorials in the top-left corner on my third character. And they're very helpful! So that's on me. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Once I felt reasonably comfortable with the basic systems, choices no longer felt so threatening. I could level up my characters without feeling like I needed to tab out into some D&D wiki to understand the exact conditions in which a buff gets removed or what the exact difference between a short and long rest is.

Anyway, I'm now plumbing through dungeons and picking up cool gear and trying all kinds of weird ideas out and it's delightful. So there is hope for us non-CRPG types with Baldur's Gate! I just think the game ought to come with an extended, more involved tutorial for D&D newbies to help make sure the onboarding process is much smoother. Still, I'm glad I toughed out the initial period, because I feel like I've mostly overcome the learning curve that turned me away at first.

This review is not for fans of Dungeons and Dragons, the older Baldur's Gate games, or Larian's other work. If you're in one of those camps, chances are you're gonna absolutely love this game and don't need me to tell you that. Instead, I'm writing for the people out there who, like me, never really vibed with CRPGs before but always hoped to someday. Maybe you, like me, saw its widespread critical acclaim and heard from all your friends how great it was and thought: "Okay, this will finally be the CRPG that clicks for me." Well, I have good news: It was that game for me! I love Baldur's Gate 3. I just want to caution anyone coming from a similar background that it's got an absolutely hellish learning curve that you're gonna have to be patient and persistent with, but I really do think it's worth the effort. For the first eight hours or so, I was very turned off by this game. I spent most of that time (no exaggeration) creating characters and feeling overwhelmed by the volume of systems, proper nouns, and seemingly binding decisions I had to make right at the outset of the game. (For context, I have little-to-no D&D experience, and BG3 definitely assumes you're already quite familiar with how D&D operates up-front.) Once I got into the game itself, I found the interface very opaque and finicky; I nearly died multiple times because I accidentally walked over ground that was on fire, and I didn't understand why enemies would get a free attack on me when I was moving past them, to name a few examples. I also found the early influx of party members frustrating because I had to learn multiple classes at once rather than just focusing on the one I chose for my player character. In hindsight, I realize that the early levels for D&D characters are quite streamlined and simple, but between the complex-to-me UI and the (from my perspective) opaque integration of D&D's underlying systems, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated. But around hour 10, something started to change. Partly, it was that I had spent enough time immersed in the game's early systems to start to understand what things like armor class and advantage/disadvantage meant, and I no longer struggled to differentiate between a primary and bonus action in combat. But the biggest thing was — and this is kind of embarrassing — I started to notice the game does have tutorials after all. I just got an ultrawide monitor for the first time and, I dunno if my peripheral vision is bad or what, but I finally noticed the tiny tutorials in the top-left corner on my third character. And they're very helpful! So that's on me. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Once I felt reasonably comfortable with the basic systems, choices no longer felt so threatening. I could level up my characters without feeling like I needed to tab out into some D&D wiki to understand the exact conditions in which a buff gets removed or what the exact difference between a short and long rest is. Anyway, I'm now plumbing through dungeons and picking up cool gear and trying all kinds of weird ideas out and it's delightful. So there is hope for us non-CRPG types with Baldur's Gate! I just think the game ought to come with an extended, more involved tutorial for D&D newbies to help make sure the onboarding process is much smoother. Still, I'm glad I toughed out the initial period, because I feel like I've mostly overcome the learning curve that turned me away at first.