What you're getting into
Baldur's Gate 3 is a party-based RPG built on the Dungeons & Dragons 5e ruleset, from the makers of Divinity: Original Sin 2. You play turn-based combat with team-based initiative, advantage and disadvantage, roll modifiers, an advanced AI, and plenty of environmental interaction — shoving, dipping, jumping and climbing all matter both in and out of fights. Character creation runs deep: 11 races with 31 subraces, 12 classes with 46 subclasses, and over 600 spells and actions, with progression up to level 12. You can build your own character or pick one of 7 Origin heroes with their own backgrounds and agendas, or play the Dark Urge, a fully customisable Origin with its own mechanics and story.
Playing it with friends
The campaign runs online as a party of up to four, and you can play together over LAN as well. Everyone makes their own character and travels the Forgotten Realms together, deciding the fate of the world as a group. In combat you can combine forces and attack at the same time, or split the party so each group follows its own quests and agendas — which means you can plan a clean ambush or set up chaos for your friends to walk into. Companions react to what you do, with their own moral compasses, and camp serves as the place where those relationships develop between adventures.
Before you start
Combat has three difficulty settings so you can tune the challenge, from a standard run to Tactician for a hardcore experience; weighted dice are optional and can nudge rolls in your favour. Exploration rewards curiosity — the world is vertical, with shadow-cursed forests, the Underdark and Baldur's Gate itself full of secrets. Decisions stick and playthroughs diverge, so expect a very different story on a second run. The game supports save-anytime, adjustable difficulty, and a range of accessibility options including adjustable text size, camera comfort, colour alternatives, custom volume controls, subtitle options, and play without timed input. There are also streamer-focused settings: nudity and explicit content can be disabled separately or together, and Twitch integration is available for audience interaction.