I’ve not played a huge amount of Dungeons & Dragons, but I get why those kids from Stranger Things won’t stop banging on about it. It turns out all those librarians in the 90s were right: using your imagination really is cool and fun! Indeed, our ability to conjure fiction from the ether is fundamental to the ongoing success of D&D. Making up stories with friends is very much a good time, and if you get to kill a goblin or two in the process? Well. That’s just gravy.
Built upon the foundations of D&D’s fifth edition ruleset, Baldur’s Gate 3 attempts to translate the fundamentals of the game into digital form. But how successful is it at doing so? Can a video game – with all the rigidity that comes with the medium – replicate the freedom of a table-top role playing game?