Alright normally I wouldn't buy a game in early access ESPECIALLY at full price like this, but Larian has done right by me in the past with their Divinity: Original Sin series so I wanna support the studio. While I do recommend this game, that recommendation comes with a few caveats. First and foremost: this is far from being a complete game. The area currently available for exploration is smaller than even Fort Joy/Reaper's Eye from DOS2 as far as content goes. Land mass may be larger, but there is by far a lot less to do in it right now.

Pros: This game is insanely complicated for an early access title. I've heard people complain that its basically just Divinity: Original Sin 3 with a DND skin on it, but I don't know why that's unwelcome. The Original Sin series are masterworks in and of themselves. The character creator is a bit limited at the moment but given the multitude of races, subraces, classes and subclasses I'm certain they'll add more aesthetic as the game continues developing. The mechanics for the most part are quite good though there are some pitfalls I'll get into in the cons section.

The voice acting is excellent so far though there there are only 4 voices to choose from for your character and they are the same across all races. I'm sure this might change later, but as it stands the voices are quite good and seldom heard enough to really break immersion. Clever segue: immersion has high potential for this game in the coming updates. Currently there's a bit of a Mass Effect vibe with the player character awkwardly staring into space as they wait for you to make a dialogue choice. Its not as bad as Mass Effect, but not as good as Witcher 3.

The graphics are excellent and hold a beautiful artistic vision despite the lack of polish at the moment. From character customization to their facial animations in dialogue, to their armour looking gorgeous from every angle, this game is very appealing visually. The combat effects and animations are fairly good though nothing quite as good as DOS2 just yet. Diversity in builds is also excellent as you'd expect from a modern DND title, though there is a lot that remains to be added from 5e.

Cons: This game is really buggy. The devs are hard at work releasing patches and at time of writing have released a patch a day since launch, making it 3 patches since, but there is a long way to go. Ragdolls flip out constantly, animations don't blend into each other and characters randomly duplicate or t-pose, Gale's eyebrows try to consume his eyes and of course plenty of crashes. I'll list my rig at the bottom for reference, but to be fair I've only crashed maybe 3 or 4 times in 19 hours of play so not terrible. To this day, Skyrim and the Fallout games are still less stable than this.

The mechanics, while mostly really good, have some serious issues. There's a fair bit of the combat system that isn't clear and never explained. There's a lot of moments where a character has a 45% chance to hit but there is no explanation for it being so low, when on another enemy the chance is higher. On top of that, the RNG is absurd. Lae'zel, the Githyanki origin character misses nearly every attack that is 80% or higher accuracy. Thought it was bad luck but this is every fight. She misses 80% of her attacks that are over 80% chance to hit. This is worse than XCOM for false RNG. Some people are saying confirmation bias but I have videos upon videos of this phenomenon in action. Also, I've noticed odd behavior with some skills, namely Sacred Flame for the Cleric class. This ability forces a saving throw on the enemy that, if passed, prevents any damage from happening, but that isn't explained in the tooltip. If it is intended behavior it should be listed as such. If not, it needs a fix.

But the mechanics issues don't end there. This game claims to be based on the 5e ruleset from DND but breaks away from that in some confusing places. The most glaring example is the dice system. When you roll a die in DND, any modifiers your character has in that particular type of check get added to the result of your dice roll but in BG3, they don't. The target number you have to beat changes but it never seems consistent with modifiers as there are points where a +5 modifier still results in a 19 target number to beat. That seems like a major departure from established rules in DND. Less major would be some of the lore in-game. The two subraces of Dwarves for example. In editions prior to 5e, Dwarves had 2 subraces: Gold and Shield. In 5e, they are referred to as Hill and Mountain dwarves. In BG3 they use the old names and not the new ones. Just a weird inconsistency.

Then there's the interaction. The camera has a lot of problems focusing where you want it to and the engine gets extremely confused as to what LODs to use for meshes and textures based on camera positioning. There's also some weird problems with some meshes not having collision. Character pathing has some major issues as well. Often times I'll find that when my character is set to go to a location at a different elevation, they'll take a route where they fall off a building and take damage and go prone. If there's an athletics or acrobatics check, it isn't shown nor is it explained at any point.

Conclusion: Baldur's Gate 3 is an extremely ambitious project that likely release at full price in early access because if it didn't it may never have been accomplished. Regardless, it is perfectly understandable to wait until full release to buy it, but it is also an excellent game to play around with and watch the growth of right now.

My rig:
Mobo: Asus TUF X570
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 4.0Ghz
GPU: Asus Strix GTX 980 4GB
RAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB 3200MHz
PSU: Corsair CS650M
Monitor: Acer Predator XB1 27" QHD

I run the game in 1920 x 1080 and full Ultra settings with little to no slowdown.

Post-Launch Update: Wanted to update my review for anyone looking through now that the game has reached its full version. My recommendation can not be overstated. This game is insanely good. I still can't believe this is a real thing I get to play. It might not be for everyone. It has a learning curve and is rather complex, but if you're able to break through that wall, its 10000% worth your time. There is really nothing like it. Few things I can think of in gaming match the level of satisfaction this game provides.

If you are unsure about the game, perhaps are worried about the complexity or the turn-based combat you may consider trying out Divinity Original Sin 2. Its more accessible than the first Original Sin game, is less complicated but gives a good introduction to how Baldur's Gate 3 plays. It lays a groundwork for the incredible innovation that Larian continuously brings to the genre.

And if you're a dev from Larian, reading through this, you are awesome. No the game isn't perfect. Yes there are things I want, but given that there is modding support (with an incredible community btw) this game is functionally limitless and mindbogglingly deep. I will be playing this game until the day I die. Plus, knowing Larian, they'll add even more incredible things based on community feedback. They added so much free DLC for DOS2 that its actually staggering in the modern gaming industry. Everyone owes it to themselves to try this game out.

Alright normally I wouldn't buy a game in early access ESPECIALLY at full price like this, but Larian has done right by me in the past with their Divinity: Original Sin series so I wanna support the studio. While I do recommend this game, that recommendation comes with a few caveats. First and foremost: this is far from being a complete game. The area currently available for exploration is smaller than even Fort Joy/Reaper's Eye from DOS2 as far as content goes. Land mass may be larger, but there is by far a lot less to do in it right now. Pros: This game is insanely complicated for an early access title. I've heard people complain that its basically just Divinity: Original Sin 3 with a DND skin on it, but I don't know why that's unwelcome. The Original Sin series are masterworks in and of themselves. The character creator is a bit limited at the moment but given the multitude of races, subraces, classes and subclasses I'm certain they'll add more aesthetic as the game continues developing. The mechanics for the most part are quite good though there are some pitfalls I'll get into in the cons section. The voice acting is excellent so far though there there are only 4 voices to choose from for your character and they are the same across all races. I'm sure this might change later, but as it stands the voices are quite good and seldom heard enough to really break immersion. Clever segue: immersion has high potential for this game in the coming updates. Currently there's a bit of a Mass Effect vibe with the player character awkwardly staring into space as they wait for you to make a dialogue choice. Its not as bad as Mass Effect, but not as good as Witcher 3. The graphics are excellent and hold a beautiful artistic vision despite the lack of polish at the moment. From character customization to their facial animations in dialogue, to their armour looking gorgeous from every angle, this game is very appealing visually. The combat effects and animations are fairly good though nothing quite as good as DOS2 just yet. Diversity in builds is also excellent as you'd expect from a modern DND title, though there is a lot that remains to be added from 5e. Cons: This game is really buggy. The devs are hard at work releasing patches and at time of writing have released a patch a day since launch, making it 3 patches since, but there is a long way to go. Ragdolls flip out constantly, animations don't blend into each other and characters randomly duplicate or t-pose, Gale's eyebrows try to consume his eyes and of course plenty of crashes. I'll list my rig at the bottom for reference, but to be fair I've only crashed maybe 3 or 4 times in 19 hours of play so not terrible. To this day, Skyrim and the Fallout games are still less stable than this. The mechanics, while mostly really good, have some serious issues. There's a fair bit of the combat system that isn't clear and never explained. There's a lot of moments where a character has a 45% chance to hit but there is no explanation for it being so low, when on another enemy the chance is higher. On top of that, the RNG is absurd. Lae'zel, the Githyanki origin character misses nearly every attack that is 80% or higher accuracy. Thought it was bad luck but this is every fight. She misses 80% of her attacks that are over 80% chance to hit. This is worse than XCOM for false RNG. Some people are saying confirmation bias but I have videos upon videos of this phenomenon in action. Also, I've noticed odd behavior with some skills, namely Sacred Flame for the Cleric class. This ability forces a saving throw on the enemy that, if passed, prevents any damage from happening, but that isn't explained in the tooltip. If it is intended behavior it should be listed as such. If not, it needs a fix. But the mechanics issues don't end there. This game claims to be based on the 5e ruleset from DND but breaks away from that in some confusing places. The most glaring example is the dice system. When you roll a die in DND, any modifiers your character has in that particular type of check get added to the result of your dice roll but in BG3, they don't. The target number you have to beat changes but it never seems consistent with modifiers as there are points where a +5 modifier still results in a 19 target number to beat. That seems like a major departure from established rules in DND. Less major would be some of the lore in-game. The two subraces of Dwarves for example. In editions prior to 5e, Dwarves had 2 subraces: Gold and Shield. In 5e, they are referred to as Hill and Mountain dwarves. In BG3 they use the old names and not the new ones. Just a weird inconsistency. Then there's the interaction. The camera has a lot of problems focusing where you want it to and the engine gets extremely confused as to what LODs to use for meshes and textures based on camera positioning. There's also some weird problems with some meshes not having collision. Character pathing has some major issues as well. Often times I'll find that when my character is set to go to a location at a different elevation, they'll take a route where they fall off a building and take damage and go prone. If there's an athletics or acrobatics check, it isn't shown nor is it explained at any point. Conclusion: Baldur's Gate 3 is an extremely ambitious project that likely release at full price in early access because if it didn't it may never have been accomplished. Regardless, it is perfectly understandable to wait until full release to buy it, but it is also an excellent game to play around with and watch the growth of right now. My rig: Mobo: Asus TUF X570 CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 4.0Ghz GPU: Asus Strix GTX 980 4GB RAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB 3200MHz PSU: Corsair CS650M Monitor: Acer Predator XB1 27" QHD I run the game in 1920 x 1080 and full Ultra settings with little to no slowdown. Post-Launch Update: Wanted to update my review for anyone looking through now that the game has reached its full version. My recommendation can not be overstated. This game is insanely good. I still can't believe this is a real thing I get to play. It might not be for everyone. It has a learning curve and is rather complex, but if you're able to break through that wall, its 10000% worth your time. There is really nothing like it. Few things I can think of in gaming match the level of satisfaction this game provides. If you are unsure about the game, perhaps are worried about the complexity or the turn-based combat you may consider trying out Divinity Original Sin 2. Its more accessible than the first Original Sin game, is less complicated but gives a good introduction to how Baldur's Gate 3 plays. It lays a groundwork for the incredible innovation that Larian continuously brings to the genre. And if you're a dev from Larian, reading through this, you are awesome. No the game isn't perfect. Yes there are things I want, but given that there is modding support (with an incredible community btw) this game is functionally limitless and mindbogglingly deep. I will be playing this game until the day I die. Plus, knowing Larian, they'll add even more incredible things based on community feedback. They added so much free DLC for DOS2 that its actually staggering in the modern gaming industry. Everyone owes it to themselves to try this game out.