There will be some spoilers for the Dark Urge endings of a Baldur’s Gate 3 character in the latter half of paragraph 3 (this is paragraph 0 and the one below this is paragraph 1).

One of the questions I repeatedly asked myself while ordering the parts for and building my PC was what game I was going to play first. As a bit of a joke, I tossed Stardew Valley and Valheim into the hat for consideration, but the real choice was between Baldur’s Gate 3, the last new and intense game I’d played on my PC that had possibly shortened the life span of my PC by pushing it harder than it could reliably handle, and Cyberpunk 2077, the first game I wanted to play but couldn’t because the major update they did in 2023 changed the minimum specifics into something my computer couldn’t handle anymore. Rather than really try to choose, I opted to play both. Technically Cyberpunk 2077 first, but since all I was doing was making a character in both games, I technically played Baldur’s Gate 3 first since that was the one that I played beyond my first chance to save and quit after completing character creation.

Since then, I’ve wound up playing Cyberpunk 2077 more than BG3, but the balance has begun to shift in the other direction as I find myself less and less willing to deal with the emotional heaviness of Cyberpunk 2077 and more interested in the fantastical adventures and general emotional warmth of BG3 as I lose myself in a massive invasion, get romantically pursued by everyone I’m nice to because of my personality rather than my appearance, and try to figure out if being a Bard is actually worth it. All of which, combined with having to limit my game time to a couple hours a day at most so I don’t stay up to late and ruin my ability to be productive at work, means I’m taking a much more relaxed approach to playing BG3 than in either of my previous full playthroughs (well, one full playthrough and one playthrough that is one or two missions from the end of the game but that has been sitting ignored for six months due to new video games which makes it feel weird to try getting back into it). What this gives me is an opportunity to pay a little more meta attention to the game, to think about the story the mechanics, characters, and plot progression are telling as I stay one step removed from the game rather than more fully immersed in it (which mostly just means I remember more of my earlier experiences and can better maintain trains of thought about the game from one play session to another).

So far, based on my recollection of my previous playthroughs and what I’ve played of this new file, the various overarching plot stories of BG3 don’t seem to really be about much. Or, at least, they don’t seem to be saying much about anything beyond the surface level stuff of your choices as the player character and how you respond to the possibilities the game presents you. Because of how many decision points there are in the game and how all those little bits add up in some surprising ways, it would not surprise me to learn that the reason the stay doesn’t say much is because it has to remain so incredibly open to the player moving through it. It has to say almost nothing so a player can read in it whatever they want to see. So you can have your vile villains, your heroic heroes, and your whimsical agents of chaos/conflicted reluctant heroes all run through more or less the same events. After all, despite the multitude of paths to get from the beginning of the game to the end, things play out more or less the same in the end. Some of the names and faces change, but not much. The only ending that really feels particularly different (as far as customizable player characters go) is the Dark Urge ending where you give into the urge and (spoilers for the Dark Urge ending) stop resisting your Bhaalspawn origins, become the horrific monster you were on the way to becoming before you lost your memories as a result of an inevitable betrayal by someone you considered beneath your notice, and then destroy the entire world/universe according to your father’s bidding. Which, you know, doesn’t really say much about the world or people in general either. Even the opposite ending, the Dark Urge turned good, doesn’t say much either since it’s gods interfering all the way down.

The only stories that seem to make statements about people and the world are the smaller stories about NPCs you encounter or the larger but still very contained stories about your NPC companions. These characters are why everyone loves the game, after all. The writing for them is superb. It just also makes the few choices you get, to alter the broad strokes of their personal stories, more impactful since those tend to only play out in the character’s bonus abilities, their individual epilogues, and in a couple cosmetic details sometimes. Sure, some player choice is involved–though there’s potentially more of it if you play an Origin Character (essentially play one of your NPC companions as your main character), but I’ve never done that and haven’t found much information on how things change at a more granular level–but the outcomes are largely predetermined and easier to write a bit of meaning into. None of which feels like much of a risky statement since a lot of it boils down good versus evil or healing versus perpetuating trauma. Which, you know, I enjoy quite a bit, but doesn’t really do anything other than provide an opportunity for catharsis since all it is doing is presenting these outcomes rather than doing anything with them.

I’ll be the first to admit that I might have missed something. I did my first playthrough of BG3 in a rapid-fire month as I battled computer issues (my old PC struggled to run BG3, especially in the state it was in upon official release), stayed up way too late most nights, and grappled with the difficult choice I’d made to actually play a Dark Urge character for my first playthrough (and then second) rather than get a sense of the game without that extra layer of danger and difficult hanging over me. I’m entirely open to the idea that I might have missed a few things because of all the stuff I just mentioned. Even my second playthrough wound up straying into the realm of exhaustion and staying up too late since I played most of it during a period when I was barely keeping myself together thanks to how busy I was at work and how burned out I was in general. This time, though, I’m going to really see what this game as to offer. Both graphically and narratively, thanks to my new computer. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even be so moved by my experience that I’ll keep doing additional playthroughs. Or even an origin character! Anything’s possible when you go into a one hundred hour commitment with no real goal or target in mind. You just make it up as you go along and hope you can retroactively justify it by gesturing at all the fun you’ve had, if nothing else. Which is pretty easy in BG3’s case. That game is tons of fun and it looks so pretty now. Everyone’s movements are so smooth and natural! There’s very little roboticness to them. Also, my office’s temperature doesn’t rise by ten degrees when I have the game running for an afternoon! It’s so nice to have a new computer!