Baldur’s Gate 3 Walkthrough Is The Entire Act 1: Swen Vincke Founder Of The Game

Swen Vincke, the founder of Larian Studio, reflects on the almost complete absence of  Belgian video game designer, director of Baldur’s Gate 3. The CEO of the game has reopened the debate on whether video games with complex systems should have tutorials that take players by the hand or if it is better to let users experiment and investigate. In an interview with PC Gamer, the founder of Larian Studios goes for the second option: he says that the tutorial is all of Act 1 which, at least in the case of the writer of these lines, can take more than 30 hours to complete.

“If you pay close attention to Act 1, you’ll see that it is a very long tutorial. You’re taught the systems. The AI shows you a lot of things and makes you realize [how they work], maybe sometimes subconsciously, but you realize things”, reflects the creative. CEO of the game continues: “You discover more sophisticated challenges gradually, where you always find a way [to solve them] because there are always multiple solutions. You might discover and come up with something possible, and from then on, that becomes part of the arsenal you use to play”.

In the first moments after starting Baldur’s Gate 3, messages appear that seem to explain how an interface works which can be impressive for people not used to the genre, or how the reactive world works and its possibilities. Nothing is further from the truth: after a few basic messages, the best way to learn is to tinker with everything, pay attention to the messages on the loading screens, and of course, go through the Vandal guide from time to time.

Also Read: Baldur’s Gate 3 Becomes The Highest Rated Game In PC History On Metacritic

The game catches being aware that its world is systemic

Discovering things little by little for yourself is when the game catches, according to its director: “When you face a problem, there are enough ways to find out as long as you try a couple of things.” Vincke says that when people say: “I didn’t know that was possible”; at which point, they are caught by the game. That’s when they change the message: ” ‘Oh, this is possible. Maybe this is possible. Oh, can I do this?’ And that’s how the systemic nature of the game, the simulation, comes to life. That’s how all the fun comes together.”

Baldur’s Gate 3 – Dungeons & Dragons

With Baldur’s Gate 3, we can take our first steps without fear of tripping, since the game itself will guide us. In this way, we can delve into the history of the Forgotten Realms (the plane in which the game takes place) without fear of making mistakes or getting lost. In this way, we can lose our fear of this huge universe a bit by understanding that, in effect, it is not such a big deal.

That is to start, but there is more. Tabletop role-playing games have the particularity that, in many cases, they work by a system of dice and parameters. We are quite used to the second because it is common for most RPGs to present us with a system of levels and statistics. DnD, in that sense, is very similar, although with the particularity that there are only 20 levels.

With Baldur’s Gate, it is very easy to adapt to this system since it will be the game itself that will give us all the information we may require. Instead of consulting a manual, we will watch the game tutorials and/or read what they want to tell us. Being a game based on, it will fit the original tabletop role. At least in broad strokes.

The reality is that tabletop role-playing and RPGs drink a lot from each other

That for one thing. On the other, the system of dice and levels. Levelling up in DnD can be quite complex because we learn different types of spells, techniques, abilities, etc. that we must take from a simply gigantic list. In Baldur’s Gate 3, the number of options has been limited, making it much easier to understand how it works.

Also Read: Baldur’s Gate 3: Who Is Karlach, Location, Classes, Companions, Full List

Despite this, he gives us many options, so we could say that he is getting us used to his older brother. All this is accompanied by an automatic dice system that, in a very visual way, is showing us what Dungeons and Dragons are really like. The only difference is the narrator.

In a DnD tabletop game, the narrator is another player. It is he who creates the story and tells us what happens. In Baldur’s Gate 3, the narrator is the game itself, so the routes are somewhat more closed. He is much more guided, but gives a lot of freedom, allowing us to understand how a table game would work.

So we think Baldur’s Gate 3 is a great introduction to Dungeons and Dragons by giving us the most important tools from the original board game, but in a controlled and guided environment that gives us everything we need much more directly.