I’m really trying to be fair here, but there’s no other way to put it: Baldur’s Gate 3 is the only option for Game of the Year at The Game Awards. The other nominees are fantastic, yes, and will rightly be remembered as part of the phenomenal lineup of games we got in 2023. But Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t just a good game for 2023, it’s an instant, ageless classic. It elevates the first two games that came before it, becoming so much more than just a long-awaited threequel.
It’s also very long, so it’s hard to know where to even start. None of you want 5,000 words on the journey I took with my first Tav – a half-drow, semi-evil monk called Freyja, by the way – but that is the charm of it. Baldur’s Gate 3, much like Dungeons & Dragons, is a game where you get out what you put in, and what we all put into our playthroughs is so wildly different.
It’s through this that Baldur’s Gate 3 is a surprisingly accessible game. You can boot it up and start playing as an Origin character within minutes, or, you can craft your own protagonist, giving them their own backstory and motivations, even keeping a journal for them as you go along. Larian has created a playground for all of these different levels of experience with Dungeons & Dragons, reigniting our imaginations in a way I haven’t seen since the BioWare glory days.
I know I’m right, but not everyone agrees with me. Stay tuned to TheGamer, where my colleagues will be making a case for all of the nominees taking home the big prize.
The best part is that it doesn’t shy away from any aspects of playing a tabletop game. Its combat is unapologetically D&D-like in a way that many would argue is inaccessible, but I don’t think that’s the case. Accessibility is more than just a lower difficulty, it’s about accommodating all of the ways a player might approach a challenge and not creating a ‘wrong’ way to play. Even if setting up the character sheets and understanding stats is intimidating, BG3 shines away from the mathematics of its malleable and creative combat.
It’s about the journey we take along the way, a journey where every step is valued. You could be in the trenches of the hells fighting demons or trying to safely smooch Karlach at camp, and it’s all part of the experience. None is more important than the other. Come for the romances, stay for the combat, or vice versa.
Don’t feel like making a character? Hop right in with one of the six Origins
Whatever draws you in, you’ll find yourself intrigued. Characters are so much more than they seem, and their stories don’t shy away from tackling sensitive subjects with grace and punch. A huge theme of BG3 is the powerful vs the powerless. Everyone we meet has a ‘God’ in their life who sets them down the path they’re on, whether it be literal, like Mystra and Shar, or captors and tormentors who exact godlike power onto their victims in moments of weakness, like Vlaakith and Cazador.
Through their victims – our companions – BG3 is incredibly survivor-focused and shows the ugly parts of recovery. It isn’t afraid to show Astarion being vulnerable one minute, and ready to become an abuser himself the next. Equally, if you take advantage of him while he’s vulnerable, the game will call you out as an abuser. Without even showing us anything explicit, Larian navigates the topic with ease.
A great RPG is always about balancing empowering and disempowering a player, and BG3 weaves this into its narrative too. This effortless blend of themes and gameplay mechanics makes it worthy of the big prize alone.
This is not to say that its representation of every theme is perfect. But even where it falters, it proves its worthiness for Game of the Year. On the whole, I probably have more issues with BG3 than almost any of the other GOTY nominees, but only because it tries to do so much. It demands to be picked apart and thought over – taking risks and succeeding at most of them is what makes a game great, not playing it safe and doing everything well enough.
Sure enough, I wish we got more from Orin. In many ways, her backstory echoes that of our companions, as she was raised in a Bhaalist cult and had no chance at a better life. Hell, her father/grandfather, Sarevok, could potentially have left his evil ways behind in Baldur’s Gate 2, so what happened there? When compared to the rest of the game, it certainly seems shallow – but not when you compare it to anything else nominated for Game of the Year. Baldur’s Gate 3 is the perfect game to compare to itself, as you try to figure out what it’s trying to say, and wonder how well it pulled this off.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game that will be lovingly picked apart for years to come, compared to its own aspirations more than it’s likened to other games – it is its own competition, a great without a true equal. It isn’t just a good sequel, or a fun RPG. It elevates the series and pushes the genre forward in ways that will inspire developers for decades to come. It shows that RPGs can be unapologetically themselves and still draw in a huge, diverse player base. It also finally put Larian on the map as the developer to watch, and if that isn’t Game of the Year material, then I don’t know what is.
Why Alan Wake 2 Should Win Game Of The Year
No other Game of the Year nominee comes even close to matching Alan Wake 2’s artistic merit and creative ambition.
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