EDIT (POST-RELEASE ADDENDUM)

It's now been 4 months since release, and I believe that we can all agree that Larian has delivered on their promises and is even continuing to improve their game with patch after patch of bug fixes and additional content as requested by the community. I've played through the game in its entirety two and a half times now, and am still discovering new content on each plavthrough. I believe the game fully deserves every award it's won so far (and likely every award it will receive in the future as well!) due to the sheer scope of the game, from all of its character customization features to playstyle options, from all of its many voicelines to its fantastic soundtrack, from its writing and lore to its animations and cinematics, and most of all Larian's devotion to once again simply making an excellent role-playing game with no microtransactions and fairly-priced physical editions with extra goodies too!

There were so many times throughout the game upon which my jaw dropped when encountering something I could not have imagined we would ever have to face off against, after having already played through most of act 1 however many times during early access, and yet there we stood each time, facing down enemies of incredible scale after having started the game off at level 1 with your typical fresh character sheet.

I eagerly anticipate whatever Larian may still have in store for us before they repackage the game into a Definitive Edition as they so often do, and am looking forward to continuing to find more secrets in this game until their next project is announced! Thank you for your hard work, Swen and the rest of the team!

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

The best cRPG of the last decade (in my personal opinion DOS2, although Disco Elysium comes in at a close second) meets DnD. It bastardizes both of them a little, but the outcome truly is something special, despite still being in early access.

I understand that some fans of the original Baldur's Gate games from Bioware aren't fond of the new game's style, and some diehard fans of DnD will vehemently protest against the changes made to 5e rules (which some already argue differ too much from 2e and 3.5e) in order to adapt them to a game that can be played without an expert DM at the helm, but if you want to be as unrestricted as possible, Larian's done an absolutely stellar job.

Yes, some things need to be changed, such as how shove is currently a bonus action that can be abused every turn by every player-controllable character, and I do agree that shove is one of the few things that should be nerfed and tweaked to be slightly more in line with 5e rules, but I honestly can't complain with how expansive the game already feels. Another minor complaint would be about how certain spells in the game (as of right now) leave elemental surfaces, which doesn't happen in 5e, though that's less important in my eyes. Though I know others consider that to be a fatal flaw, to me it's a facet of Divinity that I quite enjoyed, and I'm interested to see if the new Divinity Engine 4.0 has made any game-changing modifications to how elemental surfaces can function.

We only have access to Act 1, which isn't even complete yet - half the classes aren't in the game yet, and we can't play any origin characters yet, instead currently restricted to custom characters - yet the character customization already demonstrates Larian's dedication to detail. Of particular note was the update pushed out this morning, that being community update #10: it's a wonderful example of the developers being transparent and communicative, showing us what they've been working on, what they've changed after listening to player feedback, and revealing to us some data about how players have been approaching the game.

Maybe part of the reason I love this game so much is because of how much I love Larian, what with their consistency when it comes to maintaining their games. I mean, just look at the number of gift bags we've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for DOS2, even after the definitive edition was released. Look at the DM tools we have available for use with our friends, and their willingness to help the modding community and even make some community mods official gift bag content, and their refusal to charge people for preorders. It's rare to see a studio act so responsibly, and other developers should take note.

At the end of the day though, I'm a big DnD and cRPG fan, so this game checks all the boxes for me.

If you're interested in where the story begins, it picks up after the events of BG2, which are then followed by the DnD tabletop pen-and-paper campaign for Descent into Avernus. Descent into Avernus is in turn followed by BG3, which plops us down in Faerûn circa 1492 DR. The characters all seem to be well-written and thought out, and actually multi-dimensional. I can't wait to see how this game continues to grow as development continues, and I hope this review has helped you in your decision as to whether or not to purchase the game immediately.