After three years in early access and six years in development, Baldur’s Gate 3 has finally, officially arrived. On PC and Steam Deck, at least. The PS5 launch won’t happen until September 6th, and the XBox launch won’t happen… for a while. Of course, longtime fans of the series are used to waiting. Developed by Larian Studios, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a Dungeons & Dragons RPG that originated in the 1990s and hasn’t had a proper sequel in over 20 years. A lot has changed since those early days, including the fact that Baldur’s Gate 3 — with its 174 hours of cut-scenes and 17,000 different possible endings — will now allow you to play as a gay and/or trans character, including being nonbinary and using they/them pronouns. There’s even gay sex scenes, like every good pen-and-paper D&D game.
Baldur’s Gate 3 takes place a century after the second game. The basic plot is that you’ve been kidnapped by mind flayers, who’ve invaded Faerûn and infected your brain with parasites called illithid tadpoles that will turn you into a mind flayer if you don’t do something to stop them. Luckily, you’ll find yourself freed, early on, during a battle with githyanki warriors and their red dragons, and you can begin your journey toward exorcising yourself. Joining you will be other survivors of the attack who also have the brain worms: human wizard Gale, half-elf cleric Shadowheart, high elf vampire rogue Astarion, human warlock Wyll, and githyanki fighter Lae’zel. Like actual D&D, your choices will be constantly subject to the whim of a dice-roll, which is both terrifying and thrilling.
As a lifelong nerd and gamer, this series was always sort of hanging out in the periphery of the video game compartment in my mind, but last December I read a Reddit thread called WHY IS EVERYONE GAY IN BALDUR’S GATE 3, and I haven’t stopped being excited since then. Essentially, all the characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 are “playersexual,” meaning that they will be attracted to the player, regardless of their gender or sexuality. Some gay gamers really hate this mechanic because they want to see fully developed NPCs with gay storylines, and I totally get that, but I also have been rejected by CLEARLY BISEXUAL Cassandra in Dragon Age too many times to thumb my nose at the idea that every woman in the game could be a possible romance option for me. Also, instead of having strictly gendered dialogue, you can choose a “neutral” gender, which will unlock they/them pronouns.
In terms of character creation, there are almost a dozen races to choose from, and each has their own unique appearances and physical permutations. Facial features, body types, and even genital options are customizable. Kotaku recently posted an 11-minute character-creation video to give you an idea of the myriad options available.
I cracked open the game last night and didn’t even get my character finished; there were just too many options to mess around with! But I can’t wait to finally get going. And, frankly, I don’t have much time to dilly-dally. The illithid tadpoles are already chomping away at my brain!
This sounds super cool! Do you know if you can make your character fat in this game?
Sadly no, only “regular” and muscular. Larian seems to be pretty inclusive in general so I suspect this is more an animation issue than ill intent.
“CLEARLY BISEXUAL CASSANDRA” – I felt every bit of that lament in my bones. Shadowheart from BG3 goes a long way towards making up for that disappointment
“CLEARLY BISEXUAL Cassandra”
I’m #StilBitter2023 over Cassandra in Dragon Age, Ashley in Mass Effect, and Cora in Mass Effect Andromeda not being bisexual. WHY BIOWARE, WHY?
They had plans back during the development of Mass Effect 1 to make Ashley and Kaiden bisexual (They had the scenes partially animated and you can find them on Youtube) but for whatever reason it never happened.
Kaiden being bi though was quite popular with the fandom though so they did make him a bi romance in Mass Effect 3. Same thing didn’t happen with Ashley obviously but given that she’s a bullheaded asshole space racist I can’t really say that’s a loss.
Right?! Ugh just let me romance a notch woman BioWare! Also my crush on Cassandra was so strong, I might have her tarot card art print framed up ;)
I’ve heard of many game development studios come up with LQBTQ+ events or something like that during the pride month, and I think it’s pretty cool. I can say that Blizzard are pretty good at it. Well, I started to play diablo 4 just about a month ago, and I have no idea about the LGBTQ+ situation there, but I bought diablo 4 gold to accelerate my level up process, and it’s interesting for me to see what this game has.
Well the questions should be oposite .. can you be straight in the game?
I have two woman in party and several man. Both woman does not try anything on me so far but all men just straight up tryed to fuck me (my male character).
I am no homophob but this shit is TOO much. Does EVERYone need to be gay? Thats just bullshit .. and everyone are gay – there is no chance that they all are “predatory” gay. This is only thing that bothers me on the game .. every fkng male character is “predatory gay”.
Only good thing about it is that now I know how it feels to be very pretty woman … eeeehh 🤮🤮 .. all that perverts
Baldur’s Gate 3 sounds like a fantastic evolution of a classic series, especially with its inclusivity and depth of character creation! If you enjoy deeply immersive RPGs, might I also suggest venturing into the World of Warcraft universe? The raids there are especially engrossing, offering challenging group content that’s both engaging and rewarding. You can even simplify the journey into high-tier raids using resources like https://gamingcy.com/en-us/wow-carry/raids/amirdrassil-the-dreams-hope. Give it a shot; it’s an experience you won’t regret!
Essentially a game not meant for the strait hetro, there are several plot twists that without going into it ruin the experience. No insult to the lgbtq community intended just stating facts. Its not that the game sucks, its how they market the product, they could have made it all inclusive without the tailored surprises.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has quickly become one of my favorite RPGs. There’s so much to see and do in Early Access that I’ve spent over 100 hours playing through various games, trying to see what all the choices a player can make could lead to… and I’m still discovering more. These choices lead to completely different cutscenes and story branches! This is best illustrated by a comment on a YouTube video of a large campaign where the commenter says something like, “Wait… can you do that?!?” The answer is “yes!” If you make certain choices, you can actually enter said large campaign… which is awesome.
The choice of game engine is completely in line with the feel of D&D, as it allows you to approach encounters in creative ways that non-pen-and-paper RPGs don’t usually allow. Much of the fun of Dungeons & Dragons is the freedom you have to deal with situations, and I find the much-updated Divinity engine to be the closest to that fun in video games. Have one character throw a nearby bucket of water at a group of enemies, then have the wizard cast ice magic on the puddle, causing all enemies to slip on the now-frozen ground, making them “vulnerable” and more susceptible to successful attacks… this is the kind of creative gameplay you can usually only find when a group of friends and a Dungeon Master gather around a table.
Overall, playing this game feels like what Dragon Age Origins would feel like in a D&D setting, and combat is entirely turn-based. Knowing the history of Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate, this really feels like a natural evolution.
My only complaint is purely based on the fact that the game is not finished yet. Being an Early Access game, it has a ton of bugs. And, like Bethesda games, some of the bugs just add to the fun charm of it. My biggest complaint is that I just want more! And knowing there is more content in the finished game makes me excited!
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