New year, new Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough. On the first day of 2024, I asked my partner a very important question: will you play Baldur’s Gate 3 with me? Like, right now? I did this knowing that we would absolutely encounter huge amounts of friction – I wrote an entire piece about how a co-op playthrough wouldlikely test my patience more than anything else we do together. He said yes, though, and at 10pm on New Year’s Day, we started creating our characters.
I was right. He did exactly what I predicted he would. He spent an hour in the character creator, obsessing over exactly what colour Dragonborn he wanted to be and what dong he would give his character, which is fair. Happens to us all. Then he started realising he had no idea what he was doing or how to play, which is exactly what happened to me, and I found a surprising amount of pleasure in using my experience in the game to guide him through the systems that hadfrustrated me so much when I first started playing.I taught him to jump over obstacles, how to use spells and scrolls, and when to use short rests and long rests. When he got overwhelmed by the size of the map, I assured him that the goal of the beginning of the first act is to explore and that things will come together.
Man, I wish I’d had a me to guide me through my first attempt at Baldur’s Gate 3.
Surprisingly, instead of getting frustrated with him when he insists on digging through his meagre inventory several times within ten minutes to be absolutely sure he’s using the best weapon for his character – we are two hours into our playthrough! We don’t have any good weapons yet! – I’ve found a lot of joy in seeing how the way he plays differs from the way I do.
Refraining from commenting on the conversation choices he makes has been difficult, considering I know what will happen if he says the wrong thing, butI’ve been save scummingon his behalf, so if he does say something wrong and gets a bad outcome, I can offer to reload the save file I’d created beforehand. I’m determined to verify he has a better experience than I did by taking away as many growing pains as possible.
It turns out he’s already having a better experience, though. When I started playing the game for the first time at launch, I found myself missing things I knew other players had seen. I suspectmy lack of success with wooing Karlachwas due to a bug, though that could easily be due to a lack of rizz on my part. The party I had with the Tieflings after saving them from the goblins was bugged too, I think, because my quest tracker told me to talk to Zevlor long after the party was over. And when I went to release Withers from his crypt, I didn’t even get a cutscene – he simply never emerged, and appeared randomly in my camp later.
This playthrough shows me all the things I missed, partially because we’re making different choices that won’t trigger the same bugs, but also because Larian has been patching the game constantly since it was released. Many of the issues I faced have been fixed, as well as many of the issues Ihaven’tfaced but potentially could have. Just by nature of starting months after everybody else, my partner will have a cleaner playthrough where he bumps up against fewer bugs.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was bound to be a little broken – with such a massive, ambitious undertaking and countless choices that have real effects on the game, it would be impossible to account for every possible bug and fix it before launch. I don’t begrudge Larian a couple of bugs. I can’t go back in time and play a bug-free game, so I’m glad that I’m doing this second playthrough with my partner – not only do I get to see everything that I got locked out of the first time, but I get to do a fun bonding activity with someone I love. I do still wish I could go back in time, though.
