Baldur's Gate 3: Let the Legacy Continue

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the third role-playing video game series installment.  Based on the Forgotten Realms setting from Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur’s Gate began its legacy in 1998 with the first of the three games that would be released.  It quickly won a fan base that couldn’t get enough and wanted to see more.

Baldur’s Gate: The Legacy

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The first of the Baldur’s Gate expansion packs was Tales of the Sword Coast, and it was released six months after the main game.  It spawned three additional expansion packs, each released after Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn and its September 2000 release date.  Its first expansion pack, Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal came out in June 2001, six months before Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance came out as the first game’s second expansion pack.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II would be the next in line to win over a large fan base of RPGers around the world.  After its January 2004 release, nothing new came from the Baldur’s Gate franchise until 2012.  The Bhaalspawn Saga and the Dark Alliance were two expansion pack series that won critical acclaim for their gameplay mechanics.

Baldur’s Gate: The Wait
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Among members of the gaming community who were fans of Baldur’s Gate, eight years was a long wait for one of their favorite video games to show any sign of a revival.  After Atari announced there would be a remake of the previously released Baldur’s Gate games.  In 2012, Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition was released, then followed in 2013 by Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition.

Part of the blame behind the wait came from corporate.  There was intent by Black Isle Studios to bring forth a PC-exclusive RPG series set in the Dalelands with pausable real-time gameplay.  It was to be a standalone game, but it was scrapped after Interplay forfeited the D&D PC license to Atari.

Going into 2016, Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear joined the series.  It was followed by 2021’s Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance.  Then, finally, on August 3, 2023, gamers witnessed the Windows release of Baldur’s Gate III.  The console versions are expected to follow that will allow gamers using macOS, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S to join in on the fun.

Baldure’s Gate: Let the Legacy Continue
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Since its first release, Baldur’s Gate 3 has received rave reviews from critics and gamers alike.  The third edition of the Baldur’s Gate series takes place a few months after Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus left off, which is also over 120 years after the events of Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn left off.  This makes it the ideal setting for the latest edition to the Baldur’s Gate universe to pick up where its predecessors left off.

The hero of the game, played by the gamer, begins as an imprisoned character by the mind flayers.  As a victim of an implant designed to share the characteristics of mind flayers, the hero becomes free once the prison site was attacked by a team of Githyanki Warriors and their Red Dragons.  After this event, the gamer moves forward in a storyline that meets with another group of characters.  Together, they form a team in another classic tale of good versus evil.

Just like its predecessors, Baldur’s Gate 3 has met with tremendous success as a video game.  On the day it was released, Steam won over 537,000 games which wasted no time jumping on the game.  By August 4, 2023, Steam Early Access had already sold over 2.5 million copies of the game.