Sean Winningham
9 years of development. 7 origin characters. 10 million games sold. 30+ game awards.
1 year later.
It’s hard to believe that Larian Studios’ most successful video game, Baldur’s Gate 3, has just reached its one year anniversary of its official game release. The Dungeons & Dragons-based game took the industry by storm, challenging the standards of current RPGs, and delivering powerful world builds, character creation, and storylines that have made many people obsessed (in fact, Larian Studios shared an infographic in December of 2023 that claims at that point, players have spent a combine total of over 8,200 years in character creation). The game was so immensely popular before its official release that many Twitch and YouTube gamers were playing the game on their livestreams.
It’s clear that the game has made a major splash in the gaming world. The awards that they have earned as a result has been impressive, including 30+ awards from over 10 gaming organizations, 7 Game Of The Year awards, and “Best LGBTQ+ Character” from Gayming Awards for Shadowheart.
For many, this was also their first introduction to playing a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game. For me, this game came out when I first started to get into playing the classically popular tabletop roleplaying game (thank you, Critical Role), and I saw a lot of advantages in playing this video game to learn how to play D&D. It helps you learn how the game works as well as have a safe place to fail without the embarrassment (and sometimes toxic) experience in person. It also allowed me to experiment with other classes that I never thought about playing.
The impact of the game has gone beyond just the video and tabletop roleplaying gaming community. Baldur’s Gate 3 has become a cultural phenomenon. Larian Studios released a webpage where anyone can play A Very Baldur’s Gate Christmas, where visitors can play a Baldur’s Gate 3 memory game online every day up until Christmas and upon completing the game can get free digital assets, like music, from the game. The voice actors of the origin characters participated in a Baldur’s Gate 3-themed Actual Play with the YouTube channel High Rollers, which part 1 garnered over 4 million views. A company called High Fantasy Events has hosted some (unofficial) Baldur’s Gate 3-themed parties, called The Elfsong Tavern, where attendees can go and take part in cosplay and entertainment from the video game’s world, Forgotten Realms.
The game has also touched so many with the character stories they’ve created in the game. In his acceptance speech for “Best Performance” at the Game Awards 2023, Neil Newbon, who voiced the vampire elf Astarion, shared that so many gamers from the community reached out to Larian Studios and that “they were seen and they were represented by this game when they lost hope, when they were isolated, they felt alone, and this game brought them together, and gave them something to push through to help them all.”
Watch the acceptance speech below.
And I think Neil’s speech here gets to the crux of what makes Baldur’s Gate such a cultural phenomenon that has gone beyond just being a video game. At the most basic, personal level, this game has been about people and their stories. Not only do we have 7 origin character stories, but there are so many stories woven into the game that touches so many of us. From personal trauma to social issues, this world reflects the part of our humanity that connects and brings us together.
The gameplay is absolutely wonderful, and the world building is beyond phenomenal, but the heart of the game is the emotional connections we’ve made with the characters and others.
Personally, I fell in love with the character Karlach. The tiefling barbarian with an infernal heart. A tank character whose life is so vulnerable because of having a ticking time bomb for a heart. And yet, she is living life without a care in the world (almost). Seeing her get excited at Tav saying I love you to her and her waiting stance is her just dancing in place is the kind of heart we need in our lives.
And this is just one of many examples. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hear people say how much characters and stories have meant to them personally, ranging from just how much they love it to how it has helped them process some of their own grief and pain. And so to celebrate their one year anniversary, I wanted to share some of those stories here. (You can find the original Threads replies here.)
“I’ve never felt as seen and understood in a video game as I was when I was playing through Astarion’s companion quest”
–Kooky, Beacon Discord
“As someone working to identify and break out of the cycle of abuse, I really appreciated a game where your companions’ “good ends” all involved them doing exactly that.”
Rayne, Beacon Discord
“The options have ruined me for other games. So many lovely, chaotic optionssss”
–@the_gaming_anthropologist, Threads
“Endlessly repayable thanks to how detailed the world is and how much thought it went into player choices. Even inconsequential dialogues can have multiple outcomes because Larian put so much time into the writing. It’s a joy to discover new things even after ~800 hours of playing.”
–@wonderlandwilderness, Threads
“It’s a game where the characters and villains have meaning. Its impact on both CRPGs and TTRPGs will be lasting. It’s is what people will think of when they think of D&D and will want from CRPGs and TTRPGs going forward”
–@franksmcb, Threads
“This is the closest I will ever come to a perfect game. It takes all the best parts from my other favorite games and puts it together. Everything feels well thought out.”
–@derklucast, Threads
“It’s the best game I’ve ever played. Nothing comes close to it in terms of player autonomy and creative possibilities.”
–@gamehuntress, Threads
“I was very skeptical of the game to stat with. You see I loved aldurs gate when I was younger, and I loved shadows of amn too. It took six different friends telling me it was a great game, for me to finally risk buying it.
This was despite all the critical acclaim it was receiving from strangers. It took six different personal opinions to get me to give the game of fair shot because I was sure it would not live up to its predecessors.
I was wrong, it is a successor worthy of its title.”
–@deltabravohart, Threads
“It’s the single best crpg game I’ve ever played, maybe of any rpg video game. I can’t think of one overall better off the top of my head.”
–@kohkbottles, Threads
“One of the best games I’ve played in my 40 years of gaming.”
–@velocibrad, Threads
“Karlach is an absolute sweetheart who quickly became one of my favorite charactesr of all time.”
–@cgfillertext, Threads
To end this article, I want to share that this is my own letter of appreciation to Larian Studios. This game personally has meant so much to me (as it has to so many others) that I can’t fully express how much it has meant to me. Even after one year I still play the game weekly, listen to the soundtrack, write articles and create videos about this game. – I even got a tattoo inspired by the video game and the group that inspired me to start playing TTRPGs, Critical Role. No video game has meant this much to me, and to Larian Studios – thank you for this. I think this has truly made a mark in the world.
