Baldur's Gate 3

If you're thinking of archiving the game via GOG's offline installers (i.e. the one reason to buy specifically from GOG), you're going to have a rough time. Larian has released a couple totally broken offline patch installers that demand 1TB+ (yes terabytes) of space to work. Except they still don't work, even when the game and patch are on a drive with enough space. They've also created dead end upgrade paths because they never released patches to join the branches they created. Basically, plan on not being able to rely on offline patches, and instead expect to be downloading 100+ GB full installers if archival is your goal. Larian is well aware of the issue, and is either incapable of or uninterested in providing consistently working offline patches.

Please note that I am not giving this game a low score due to bugs or technical issues due to it being in early access. I believe the majority of those problems will be fixed. This game is not for Baldur's Gate fans. As expected, the title is pure marketing and a cash grab. This is Divinity OS 3 with a completely mangled DnD 5e ruleset (way too many liberties were taken deviating from the core rules) that breaks gameplay. Exploring the game is a tedious chore. Way too much meaningless clutter in the world, a camera view that reveals everything even if not in party sight (for example you can see 5 guys waiting to ambush you behind closed doors) and most combat encounters which should be exciting and action packed are a yawn fest due to the choice of having this be a turn based game which does not fit with the way the turns are done. You just play your turn and go watch a show while you wait for the AI to finish doing their stuff (which takes quite a while). Hoping for nice combat encounters as you would expect from a DnD game? Forget that, you'll just see turn after turn of goblins throwing grenades, magic and elemental arrows at you. The whole theme of the game is wrong. The narrator sounds like a porn star whispering in your ear instead of an actual story teller. The setting is too bright and jolly. The companions lack personality and most of them are just a bag of cringy and exaggerated reactions. The whole everyone in your party wants to bang you be it male or female and only known you for a little while is also present here which is dumb. Banter is non existent except for a few generic interactions. All in all, if you're interested in Baldur's Gate 3... just save your money and pretend this game never existed. If you're a fan of Divinity OS 2 and don't mind a sequel which uses a system that makes the experience worse than DOS2 but is still the same feel, then you may like this Divinity OS 3.

This game isn't BG3. Calling it as such suggests upholding a certain legacy. So far, after several hours, it seems to be exactly as the title suggests, Original Sin 3 in The Forgotten Realms setting with 5e rules. Now, mind you, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Could be great even, as long as you recognize you won't get that sense of nostalgia again. (I'm not talking about a direct continuation of the previous games. Those ended great). I do hope they will add an option for real-time with pause, like the previous versions. Other than that, while the graphics are certainly very nice, they are not groundbreaking in any way. Wait for them to finish the game before you buy it.

Ignoring the numerous bugs and SEVERE balance problems (its early access) the game is worse for trying to be both a D:OS game and a Baldur's Gate sequel. It doesn't work. It comes off as a watered down blend of the two that doesn't do justice to the mechanics of either. I don't see this being fixed as it would most likely require an entire rewrite to do so. As an aside... why does every enemy down to the weakest goblin have a bag full of grenade weapons and near infinite throwing range? Picking even the smallest fight in this game feels like you were attack by a battleship.

It starts out incredibly high fantasy overpowered with giant ships flying around. It STARTS that way. It leaves itself nowhere to go from there. After the intro, nothing feels even remotely important. They put all the party members you can acquire on the front cover of the game. In other words, this game leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination in a genre that is all about leaving something to the imagination. Mystery: zero. Intrigue: zero. Desire to keep playing: zero. I didn't finish what they have there so far. Something went seriously wrong here.