It all started with Fable. I would go over to the Sharpe’s house and take turns watching Joe and Paul play the first RPG I had ever seen, Fable for the OG Xbox. My mind was blown, Paul, the straight-A student was playing as a shining hero. A broad and tall mountain of a man that the town’s people beloved. He would walk his avatar through the street and people would flock to his very presence. When he arrived to stop bandits they would cower in fear as he arrived on the scene. He played as a sword swinging, lawful good, super-hero-of-the-people. Who would stop at nothing to stop the villain Jack-of-Blades.
And then, after some begging, the younger brother Joe, who had a bit of a mischievous side, would log on to play the exact same game. Except instead, he was playing as someone evil! His character had betrayed and backstabbed every ally he had encountered. Bandits worshipped the very ground he walked on, and townspeople would throw their money at him before he could even get close enough to extort them. He was spell slinging sorcerer, he was chaotic evil, and he played the most feared man in all of Albion. He would stop at nothing to become even greater than Jack-of-Blades.
My mind was simply blown, the ability to live within a story an affect its outcome in a videogame was just a completely new concept. Sure I’ve saved the princess before, but Fable gave us the ability to affect the story how we wanted to. As if I could team up with Bowser, take over the Mushroom Kingdom myself, and marry Daisy instead. (I’ve always been partial to Brunettes.) Ever since then I’ve been pretty hooked on games in which my choices affect the game itself. It’s no secret how much I love Undertale, which takes that concept and cranks it to 11. From my decision to save the Rachni Queen in Mass Effect, deciding how V and Johnny were going to settle their little headache, to deciding who gets out of purgatory in Pyre. These are the kind of games that I truly love.
It’s been a while since I’ve had that feeling. It is extremely difficult and nuanced to make games where choices have a significant impact on the story itself. Most often now we get the “illusion of choice”, where we can kill this questionably bad guy or show him mercy, either way he is never seen again. (I instead need to spare him only for him to become a major boss fight much later in the game, etc.) I think Bioware, Bethesda, and later CD Projeckt Red were the major studios that had the budget, and ability to make games to this epic of a degree. I’m excited to say I think we have another game that is less than a month away… and I am ready to crown it as one of the next great story-telling RPGs of our generation. Where your choices matterTM.
Baldur’s Gate 3
The following contains a story from act 1 of my playthrough with my two friends.
Steve the Paladin, expert of combat and healing. Josh the Ranger, lover of animals and nature. There are spoilers below keep scrolling to the conclusion if you wish.
I think a lot of people are going to write this off because of it is a #3 in a series they have never heard of, completely irrelevant. I think a lot of people are going to write this off because it is inspired by D&D. Again, completely irrelevant. As I had no experience with either before jumping into the early access beta where you are allowed to play the first act of the game. And let me tell you, it’s been a while ride. It’s been so fun, I’ve forced myself to stop playing so that I can enjoy the game it its entirety when it launches August 3rd.
I want to type out each and every awesome experience I’ve had in my brief 20 hours with the game. How each character feels uniquely alive and real, how our companions feel like they are following us because it makes sense, not just because the game says they should. How alive the world feels and each conversation is rich with meaning. But instead I’ll tell you the spark note version of one particular escapade.
We ventured out and discovered the base of operations of a gigantic goblin camp. Determined to help a village full of innocents who had lost their druid leader, and now had significant infighting on what to do next in order to keep the village safe. We knew this goblin camp was the greatest threat to the village’s survival. So we sweet talked our way into the front door convincing the Goblins we had a meeting with their inner-ring of leaders. Once inside, we met a Dark-Elf who was in charge of leading the Goblin assault on the village. She was charming, she was charismatic, she was vicious. The boys and I were entranced, why did we want to help the village so bad? The people couldn’t get along, they hadn’t made any effort to save their leader, and they were completely rudderless. Yet this Dark-Elf, she was someone we wanted to follow. We decided that instead of saving the village, we might instead tell her exactly where the village was! And all of its secrets, and how best to attack it. We would join her at dawn and assault the base with her and the goblins. Satisfied with our new plan, and ally, we walked out the back of the goblin camp and discovered a hidden dungeon underneath the camp. Naturally, our thief picked the lock and we checked it out.
We walked into a very dirty and bloody area where they were storing wild animals. Clearly some experimentation and maybe worse, torture had been going on down here. Two goblins beckoned us over to throw stones at a massive bear they had captured.
Our hearts sank. We had just aligned ourselves with the animal torturers.
I urged Josh and Steve to turn back, and try to turn a blind eye to this all, we had Minthara to think of, maybe this was some big misunderstanding? But our Ranger, Josh, lover of animals, (the type of guy who would’ve played as a HERO in Fable) didn’t hesitate. He buried an Arrow into the back of one of the goblins who had been torturing the bear. Well normally we sort of like to have a group discussion on what to do, but…. the decision had been made. The bear seeing its opportunity, breaks through the cage that had been holding it back. And with our aid, starts attacking the remaining goblins in the dungeon. In mid combat this bear, starts shimmering green and transforms into a druid! It was the leader of the village that we had wrongly presumed dead. If there was any debate before on who to side with, the bear had made it clear. After dispatching the rest of the goblins in the dungeon we knew we had to return to the goblin base. We couldn’t let the dark-elf live after all the info we had given her. There are 3 more twists to this story that I am not going to share. Fire your spark notes editor.
No More Spoilers Below
If the first half of Act 1 is the absolute best part of the game, I would still say that this game could be one of the greats. But if Larian somehow finds a way to take the magic of the Goblin Camp encounter, and scale it up throughout the game, then we might have a true masterpiece on our hands. It’s worth noting, Larian has proven they have the ability to make great games. With its last major releasing landing on my Top 15 Games of this Decade List. (WHOA! I AM LINKING MY OLD POSTS WITHIN THIS POST, I’M A REAL BLOGGER NOW.) And thus for the first time in years I have a game that has made me put a countdown timer on my phone.
I think there is a clear discussion that needs to be had why most modern day games stink so badly, but that requires a blog post all on its own. For now, I can count the days until release and fill my idle time with dreaming about which type of character I am going to play. Don’t worry “Joe’s” of the world, they just announced you can play specifically as a person who just wants to watch the world burn, The Dark Urge. I can’t wait to sink into the world that Larian has crafted with a few of my friends.
Gamenotes 