Hear me out: I never want to complete Baldur's Gate 3

After spending the last hour completing my fourth Baldur’s Gate 3 character or “Tav” - this one with white hair, pale skin and one blue eye and one completely blacked out eye - I named her Thorn and eagerly hit the play button.

Before her came a red-haired rogue, a brown-skinned druid and my first ever character who sported a long Lara Croft-esque braid and scowled a lot. All of these characters were the loves of my life at the time, until the next one inevitably came along just a few hours into gameplay.

As you can probably guess from the title, despite spending multiple hours in Baldur’s Gate 3’s character customisation, I am yet to finish a playthrough. However, in my defence, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t tried.

Larian Studios

My first playthrough which I played with a friend took us all the way to the game’s third act where, upon suddenly being faced with a bustling village full of hundreds of NPCs, suddenly made my PC throw a tantrum. I appreciate that Baldur’s Gate 3 features many magical abilities such as teleportation but I did not want to be teleporting due to lack of frames.

Despite changing many settings and crying a little bit, Act 3 was still pretty much unplayable for me and despite Larian Studios releasing patches and fixes not soon after, my attention had been diverted elsewhere.

However, I was finally convinced to come back to the game a few days later but at that point, I had the urge to start over and thus the cycle began.

Listen, if my character doesn’t feel right then the experience won’t feel right and with Baldur’s Gate 3 being one of the biggest RPGs of 2023 and even winning Game of the Year, I had to make sure I was getting the best out of it.

As much as the game has epic turn-based combat, an engrossing story and Neil Newbon, one of its stand-out features is its characters.

Ranging from the originally standoffish Shadowheart to the posh vampire Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3 managed to capture every personality type under the sun and my character had to fit in.

I wanted my character to be the perfect person to tear down the walls around Shadowheart’s heart, stand up to Mizora for Wyll, feed Gale and teach Karlach how to live again. Could I create a character strong enough to match Lae’zel or mend Astarion’s scars?

Larian Studios

The answer is I probably could and I probably did but as with taking on any massive open-world RPG, I got easily distracted with clearing the map, kicking squirrels and reading any note scattered around. Quite frankly, I played Baldur’s Gate 3 the wrong way. At least based on how my brain works.

Just like attending a buffet, my eyes were too big for my stomach. I wanted to experience all the title had to offer instead of focusing on the main story and worrying about side quests and hidden features. As a result, it has been 9 months since Baldur’s Gate 3 was released and I am still yet to see how it ends.

However, and to the shock of many, I have no plans to.

I am well aware that it is one of the greatest RPGs of all time and rightly deserved to win Game of the Year. However, if I have to experience the opening sequence one more time, I may scream.

I know, I know! I did this to myself and have nobody else to blame. Who knew that multiple restarts would lead to burnout? Not me, apparently.

Regardless, I will value the many hours I did have with the game, especially playing with a friend who didn’t judge my questionable decisions in combat (enemies slipping on grease will never not be funny) or leaving me to romance Astarion in peace (even if they did snoop at my cutscenes).

I hope that one day I will feel refreshed enough to revisit Baldur’s Gate 3 and finally discover how the story ends. However, for now, I would recommend knowing your limits or you will end up like me… and nobody wants that.