A little over a week ago, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase Baldur's Gate 3. One of my friends was loving the game, and got another one of my friends to purchase it. So, do too a bit of peer pressure and the wanting to try the game out, I caved and purchased the game.

And boy is the game great!

At first, I was juggling Baldur's Gate 3 and Final Fantasy XIV, and because of the nature of MMORPG's, I felt like I needed to play FFXIV more frequently then any other game I own. The first few days, I only played Baldur's Gate 3 for an hour or so.

But, come last Saturday, when my two friends and I sat down and started a multiplayer campaign, I was hooked.

I decided to shelve FFXIV for the time being, and I have been loving Baldur's Gate 3 since.

At the time of writing this post, I have 26 hours into Baldur's Gate 3, according to Steam. About 9 hours of that is the multiplayer campaign my friends and I started, and the rest of it is my single player campaign. It is honestly one of the best games I have played, especially in recent years.

The New Standard for Games

If you follow Baldur's Gate 3, you may have heard about the controversy regarding it. A lot of AAA game developers stated that gamers shouldn't see Baldur's Gate 3 as the new standard for games. But, I think the opposite. Baldur's Gate 3 should be the new standard. Not in the sense that every RPG needs to play like Dungeons & Dragons, but in the sense that games being released should be of the same quality of Baldur's Gate 3.

Understandably, Baldur's Gate 3 has been in production for many years, and they indeed did have hundreds of developers working on the game. But, when you look at other AAA games that recently released, mainly Diablo 4, you can see that they had thousands of people working on that game, and honestly, Diablo 4 has been a train wreck. The game released in an incomplete state, the developers further decided to make the game worse with various patches, and it is now at the point that Diablo 4 is one of the lowest player rated games on Metacritic.

Although Baldur's Gate 3 is far from perfect, having experienced a fair bit of bugs, and a few game breaking bugs in both my single and multiplayer playthroughts, the game is still vastly different in terms of game quality compared to many other AAA games recently released. One of the biggest differences is that I paid $60 for Baldur's Gate 3 and with that money, I get a story complete game with hundreds of hours of potential playtime. Better yet, there are no DLC's that would provide additional content that is otherwise not present in the game, and the one DLC they do offer gives you a cape, a new dice, and a mask that changes your appearance. All of which doesn't affect the game itself, and you can go without them. While Diablo 4, I paid $95 for it, and I get a base game that was playable, but because of it being a live service, had a lot of lag and rubber banding. On top of that, if I wanted to "fully enjoy the experience" of Diablo 4, I would need to buy into their battle pass every season, which would be an additional cost. Not to mention they are pumping out cosmetics in the cash shop, which are all additional costs. Some of these outfits cost $20-30, which is just insane.

Honestly, I am shocked that I am shocked about how complete of a game Baldur's Gate 3 is. In fact, 10+ years ago, games released like this all the time. You paid $60 for the game, and you got a full game. Not these live service games that release incomplete, and slowly turn into a fully working game after many have purchased, played it, and got annoyed with it. Baldur's Gate 3 has definitely reset my viewpoint on games, and I am once again going to try and not buy into hype that many AAA game developers rely on.

It is a 10/10 for me

The game itself is definitely a 10/10. I have never really been a table top gamer, although I have always wanted to be. Baldur's Gate 3 scratches that itch. Better yet, with how the game is set up, you can play the game multiple times, having different journeys to one of the games many endings each time. That is the pinnacle of replayability.

Heck, the fact that the game released with no microtransactions and shady DLC practices alone is worth the $60 I spent for the game. I can definitely see myself getting 100+ hours out of this game. The fact that my single player playthrough of the game is already hitting the 17 hour mark, and I haven't even left Act I is already proof that my first playthrough is probably going to be 100+ hours, and I definitely want to play the game again to explore different in-game decisions!

If you haven't taken a look at Baldur's Gate 3, I definitely recommend it. It may not be the style of game that everyone likes. But it is definitely a great game!