Baldur's Gate III is the third main installment in the Baldur's Gate series, based on the tabletop fantasy role-playing system of Dungeons & Dragons. Baldur's Gate III received critical acclaim, with praise for its gameplay, narrative, and production quality. It won several Game of the Year awards, including from the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards.

The realm of Baldur's Gate, located in Forgotten Realms, it's a wide world with a large number of locations and hidden areas. The story is set primarily in the Sword Coast in western Faerûn, encompassing a forested area that includes the Emerald Grove, a druid grove dedicated to the deity Silvanus; Moonrise Towers and the Shadow-Cursed Lands, which are covered by an unnatural and sentient darkness that can only be penetrated through magical means; and Baldur's Gate, the largest and most affluent city in the region, as well as its outlying suburb of Rivington. Other places the player visits include the Underdark, the Astral Plane and Avernus.

The protagonist wakes up inside a giant dimension-crossing illithid (mind flayer) flying ship. They are implanted with a parasitic tadpole that enthrals and transforms people into illithids; however, the transformation does not happen, and the ship comes under attack from githyanki warriors. The protagonist is freed during the fighting and steers the damaged ship to Faerûn, where it crashes. They encounter other survivors of the wreck, all likewise implanted with tadpoles. The party seeks to remove their parasites through numerous avenues, all of which fail to provide a cure. In the meantime the main characters becomes involved in the fate of the Emerald Grove, where local druids and tiefling refugees face off against the goblin horde that worships a cult of the "Absolute". After leaving the Emerald Grove our protagonist seeks sanctuary from the curse around Moonrise Towers in a tavern called the Last Light, held by a group of tiefling refugees, Flaming Fist conscripts and Harpers. Here you find more allies against General Ketheric Thorm, the reigning lord of Moonrise and Chosen of Myrkul, is using a relic named the "Nightsong" as an engine for his immortality. The party scours the depths of Moonrise in pursuit of the Nightsong, revealed to be Dame Aylin, a daughter of Selûne. General Ketheric Thorm along with Orin the Red, the Chosen of Bhaal and Enver Gortash, the Chosen of Bane controls the Absolute, revealed to be an Elder Brain, and seeks to rule the Sword Coast by manipulating everyone implanted with a tadpole. In the next chapter the protagonist arrives at Baldur's Gate as Gortash and Orin attempt to pit them against the other, while the companions find closure for their personal quests. Taking advantage of Orin and Gortash reckoning, our heroes eliminate them and assemble the all three Netherstones to subdue the Elder Brain. In the end, using illithid powers combined with Netherstones and the power of Orpheus, a legendary githyanki warrior, our party defeat the Elder Brain.

The game use a nonlinear sequence of the events with crucial decisions to take along the story and concluding with one of the multiple endings. Beside a long and captivating main quest you have many other mini-quests and side missions abundantly rewarded.

The player character can either be created from scratch by the player, chosen from six pre-made "origin characters", or a customizable seventh origin character known as The Dark Urge. All six pre-made origin characters can be recruited as part of the player character's party. They include Lae'zel, a githyanki fighter; Shadowheart, a half-elf cleric; Astarion, a high elf vampire rogue; Gale, a human wizard; Wyll, a human warlock; and Karlach, a tiefling barbarian. Four other characters may join the player's party: Halsin, a wood elf druid; Jaheira, a half-elf druid; Minsc, a human ranger who carries a hamster named Boo with him; and Minthara, a drow paladin. Jaheira and Minsc previously appeared in both Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Each one of the main characters has an original personality, unique and very complex. Also all the "origin characters" have a full backstory of their own which can be unreveild through a series of side-quests. The fully voice acted of the characters add more charisma to their riched personality. You can act either solo or in a team of maximum four characters. You can swap any companion in your team as long as they are available in your camp site. Also you can lead the team with any of your available characters but no matter what team setup you chose, your avatar must be a member. There are 12 character classes, which are further subdivided into 46 subclasses. Each class focuses on a different aspect of the combat system.The player can also select more than one class per character, which is referred to as multiclassing, allowing the player to build their character in many different and unique ways.

The game is fully narrated by voice actress Amelia Tyler, who acts as the Dungeon Master, describing the world and the player's actions throughout the story. Virtually you can interact with any character and creature in the game. Some of the NPCs will react in conformity with your actions. You will encounter many enemies in the game but the main antagonists of the story are the leaders of the Cult of the Absolute: General Ketheric Thorm, Lord Enver Gortash and Orin the Red. In fact you can make an enemy of any NPC if you turn against them.

Reception

• Metacritic score: 96 / 100 (PC), 96 / 100 (PS5), 99 / 100 (XSX)

• OpenCritic score: 99%

• Destructoid score: 10 / 10

• Digital Trends score: 5 / 5

• Eurogamer score: 4 / 5

• Famitsu score: 36 / 40

• Game Informer score: 9.5 / 10

• GameSpot score: 10 / 10

• GamesRadar+ score: 5 / 5

• IGN score: 10 / 10

• PC Gamer (US) score: 97%

• PCGamesN score: 9 / 10

• PCMag score: 5/5

• Polygon appreciation: Recommended

• Push Square score: 10/10

• TechRadar score: 5/5

• The Guardian score: 5/5

Baldur's Gate III received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic, with 99% of critics recommending the game on aggregator OpenCritic. Critics praised the quality of the writing, including the detailed depiction of the Dungeons & Dragons setting of Faerûn; the intertwined storylines enabling alternate story moments and a large degree of player freedom; and the characters, particularly companions, that feel interesting and memorable. Critics also praised the production quality, including the voice acting, character and facial animations, and detailed environments. The game's implementation of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition ruleset was well received, although some critics were concerned that the complexity of the system could be daunting for players wholly unfamiliar with the tabletop version of the game. The technical performance and its few bugs were highlighted, especially given many vast and complex game systems and interactions. Critics were more lukewarm on the inventory system and some aspects of the user interface, such as needing to micromanage the equipment of multiple characters.

Fraser Brown of PC Gamer called the game "the new pinnacle of the [CRPG] genre", while Alex Battaglia of Eurogamer praised the game's performance on PC, and added that "Baldur's Gate 3 launches in a polished state with no game-breaking issues, shaming the technical quality of other big AAA releases".

In my opinion Baldur's Gate III is that kind of RPG where you find all necessary elements to fully experiment a game masterpiece. Of course Baldur's Gate III is not a perfect game and there always will be things which can be improved but nevertheless this game is a real piece of art. I love how much attention the creative team paid to all game details such: the graphic design of characters and environment; the characters features, expressions and their voices fully performed by artists; the rich story and history of the Faerûn realm; the complexity of the plot, main quest and other side missions; and last but not the least, the wonderful music score of the game, one of the best game soundtracks ever made. My rating for each section of the game is this:

• Gameplay: 4.6 / 5

• Story: 4.5 / 5

• Characters: 4.8 / 5

• Video: 4.6 / 5

• Audio: 4.5 / 5

• User Interface: 4.7 / 5