Baldur's Gate 3 Review

Larian's 2023 role-playing game runs Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition close to the rulebook and then lets you break the encounter design with it. Almost anything can be shoved, thrown, stacked, set alight or dropped from height; a fight the designers expected you to win with spells can be won by collapsing a chandelier. Three acts, each dense enough to be a game, follow a party infected with a mind flayer parasite, and the script accounts for an implausible number of states - who is alive, who you slept with, which companion you left in a cage in act one. Every line is voiced and every conversation is staged with cinematic cameras, which is why it took six years. Companions have their own quests and will leave if you contradict them enough. It shipped with drop-in six-player co-op and a full character creator, won essentially every award available in 2023, and is now the reference point for what a party RPG can be.