Larian built an RPG with real consequences for nearly every choice, and it rarely misses.
Larian Studios spent six years building Baldur's Gate 3, and what they built is a game that remembers. I've finished it twice, once as a rogue who talked her way out of nearly every fight and once as a paladin who couldn't lie if his life depended on it, and the game noticed the difference constantly. Not in a stray line of dialogue. Entire quests resolved differently depending on who I'd decided to be.
Here's where that clicked for me. My rogue strolled into the goblin camp by convincing the sentries she belonged there, got a guided tour of the place, and smashed their war drums before anyone thought to beat them. My paladin arrived at the same gate two months later, said one honest sentence, and spent the next forty minutes fighting everything in the Western half of the map. Same camp, same quest marker, completely different evening. Ninety hours of the game is like that.
“I've never played a game that remembered so much about who I said I was.”
The combat is the actual Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition ruleset, run by a computer that never gets a rule wrong and never lets you fudge a save. Shove the archer off the ledge, ignite the grease before he walks through it, or turn invisible and skip the whole thing. The dice roll on screen, so you get to watch your plan die honestly.
Amelia Tyler's narration is the glue holding the tabletop fantasy together. She reads like a dungeon master who likes you but doesn't trust you, and hers is some of the best voice work in a cast stacked with it.
The party carries the back half of the game, though not in the order the internet ranks them. Astarion, the scheming vampire spawn everyone fell for, is fine. The sad backstory under the sarcasm is well written, I see the appeal, and after two full runs I'd still trade him for Karlach without blinking. She's a tiefling barbarian who escaped literal hell with an infernal engine burning through her chest, and she's mostly just happy to feel sunlight again. That character should collapse into a mascot, cheerful people with tragic bodies usually do, and instead she's the most likable companion an RPG has produced in years, with a personal storyline quietly breaking your heart on a timer while everyone else's gets to take its time. Shadowheart, a cleric keeping secrets even from herself, is the other one I'd call essential. Larian isn't shy about letting any of them end badly if you make the wrong call, and knowing that changes how carefully you make it.
The consensus says Act 1 is the strongest opening this genre has seen in a decade, a forest and a ruined temple with no wasted space, and the consensus is nearly right. The stretch I keep replaying in my head is Act 2. The shadow-cursed lands trade openness for a genuine sense of dread, a swamp where the light around an inn is the only thing keeping you alive, and it's the part of the game I'd show someone to explain why this thing swallowed my autumn. Act 3, the city of Baldur's Gate itself, is the weak link and it isn't close: more bugs, quests that don't close out cleanly, and a framerate that used to dip hard in the Lower City before the patches landed.
Also, I save-scummed every pickpocket check in the game. Every single one. The quicksave button is right there and Larian did nothing to stop me, so as far as I'm concerned we share the blame.
Inventory management for a six-person camp hauling three acts of loot is a mess by the end. I hauled all of it anyway, because what if I needed forty-one candles.
You can also play the companions directly as origin characters, or as the Dark Urge, a custom origin built around a murderous compulsion you're trying to resist. Most studios would announce a feature like that and quietly ship half of it. Larian finished it, and Dark Urge might be the best character concept in an RPG this generation.
My rogue took ninety hours. The paladin took seventy, mostly because I stopped picking every lock in Faerûn. The third character sheet is already rolled, a Dark Urge sorcerer, and I've promised myself I'll wait for the weekend to start. I won't.