The Ultimate Guide to Baldur's Gate 3: Unleashing the Perfect Fantasy Video Game City Experience

Highlights

Baldur's Gate 3 has successfully brought the magic of a tabletop campaign into gaming while creating its own unique identity.

Act 3 takes place in the Lower City of Baldur's Gate, which provides a vast area brimming with meticulously designed content and resolutions for previous character storylines.

Larian Studios has successfully captured the sheer magnitude of Baldur's Gate, presenting one of the most remarkable cities in the realm of RPG games.

Baldur's Gate 3 has established itself as one of this year's most significant releases. Larian Studios' dedication to fully bringing to life a part of the Sword Coast in Dungeons and Dragons' Faerun has greatly contributed to the game's success. With its three expansive acts, the game showcases incredibly memorable environments and NPCs, capturing the essence of a tabletop campaign while creating its unique identity.

The challenge of adapting the Forgotten Realms into one of the most immersive worlds in video gaming was tackled head-on in the development of Baldur's Gate 3. Depicting the scale of the titular city posed a particularly noteworthy difficulty. As a major port metropolis and trading hub in the Dungeons and Dragons lore, the city's previous representations in the series lacked the technical precision that Larian Studios aimed to achieve. However, by adopting a more realistic graphical style, Larian Studios has defied expectations and crafted one of the most remarkable cities in the RPG genre.

Fantasy Video Game Cities Are Tough to Execute

Combining an open-world city with an RPG experience is a challenging task, and many games have chosen alternative approaches to avoid this challenge. Examples of video game levels that do not truly resemble cities include Whiterun and Solitude from Skyrim, as well as the empty grand halls of Anor Londo in Dark Souls.

Although there have been impressive representations of cities in RPGs such as Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel's starting zones of Taris and Nar Shaddaa, these areas are often comprised of multiple separate, relatively small locations. While Baldur's Gate 3 is primarily known for its wilderness in Act 1, the later part of the game successfully creates a city that fulfills the dreams of many players.

Larian Studios Has Delivered the Most Complete Depiction of Baldur's Gate Yet

Acting as the primary setting for Act 3, the Lower City of Baldur's Gate is a massive area brimming with meticulously crafted content. Vibrant and teeming with everything from minor quests to secret murder plots, Baldur's Gate 3 evokes nostalgia for beloved locales like Cyrodiil's Imperial City from Oblivion. Populated by a diverse array of NPCs and adorned with fully furnished buildings, the city of Baldur’s Gate also revitalizes the existing lore by bringing closure to the storylines of several past characters.

Although the Lower City alone is vast, there are rumors that an entire additional section called the Upper City was not included in Baldur's Gate 3. Mentioned multiple times in the third act of the game and believed to have connected to various other omitted elements, the opulent Upper City may potentially make a comeback in a future expansion. Nonetheless, the Lower City and its surroundings remain a truly awe-inspiring experience for many players. Regarded as a remarkable testament to quality in the modern gaming industry, Baldur's Gate 3 presents a city that stands as one of the greatest rewards for those who survive into the later stages of the game.

Baldur's Gate 3 is out now for PC. A PS5 version releases on September 6, and an Xbox Series X/S version is expected to launch in late 2023.