Let’s put the grumpy in their place right away: yes, the game is currently buggy … and that’s completely normal! The developers have announced that Early Access will last for at least a year, which brings us to the end of 2021, if not 2022, for a real full release. This leaves a lot of time for the studio to refine the experience, precisely thanks to current feedback from players. In short, it is as inappropriate to complain about the bugs of an unfinished game as it would be to regret the lack of aesthetic qualities of a painting in progress. Especially since the current “build” remains perfectly playable. This first act naturally begins with a very rich character creation phase, which allows you to choose and customize many parameters (name, sex, origin, history, race, class, subclass, skills, characteristics …). It is not yet possible to select predefined heroes, but it will indeed be the case in the final version, as evidenced by the gray tabs evoking Astarion, Lae’zel, Gayle, Shadowheart or Wyll.
We can all the same already get to know them during our journey, since they serve as companions to recruit. The player can control up to four characters at the same time (against six in the previous episodes, we will come back to this), the presence of such and such paving the way for different dialogues, romances, choices and branches. Moreover, many quests can be solved in several ways. A stealthy or combative approach, a dialectical cunning or an expeditious frankness, the options are numerous. This point is all the more pleasant as the game regularly uses dice rolls. Some are invisible and made automatically according to your characteristics, but others, more important, are represented graphically on the screen and ask you “really” to roll a dice. On the program: a thrill worthy of opening a lootbox, but without having to spend anything! Most impressive is that failure can sometimes be just as rewarding as success, since it then paves the way for an unexpected resolution of the current goal.
DIVINE DUNGEONS
When it comes to clashes, Larian Studios is using the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, as well as the work done for eighteen years on the Divinity series, to offer us chiseled mechanics. The fights abandon the real-time system with active pause of previous Baldur’s Gate, which is sure to make some nostalgic bitch. Especially since this may be the reason for the limitation to four heroes mentioned above! But do not panic, your servant may be an old man, he quickly got used to the new combat mechanics. It must be said that the turn-based confrontations offered here work very well, especially since they have already proven their worth in Divinity. Thus, they give pride of place to verticality (with big bonuses granted to archers placed in height) as well as to environmental effects. Plunging your sword into the flames, for example, allows us to add fire damage to our attacks, while we will not hesitate to trigger a rain spell to appease heroes who would inadvertently find themselves on fire.
When it comes to interactions with NPCs, there is also something to be enjoyed. To begin with, certain skills allow us to actually interact with animals or corpses, which is necessarily extremely pleasant. Especially since, in general, the writing is very neat. The aesthetic aspect is not left out since the dialogue sequences benefit from a staging that was technically not possible at the time of the first two Baldur’s Gates. Now we get close-ups of faces and detailed facial animations. There remains the question of the scenario, which we will only briefly mention here since the game is still far from over. With only one act available for the moment, out of three or four, all surprises are still possible. While waiting to learn more, we can already tell you that the story that serves as the starting point for the adventure holds up perfectly. As a reminder, she puts you in the shoes of a victim of mental floggers, as these slimy, sprawling creatures have introduced one of their larvae into your brain. The same goes for your companions who, after having escaped from the flagellers’ vessel, begin their journey a short distance … from Baldur’s gate!
