Baldur’s Gate 3’s multiplayer can be a lot of fun, yet I still haven’t been able to finish a campaign. While I’ve finished the main story on my own – and have been hovering around in Act Three of an Honour Mode playthrough for fear of losing my progress – I can never seem to stick with a multiplayer campaign past the Shadow-Cursed Lands. I think part of this is that, while certain aspects of the game work fine with friends, others suffer pretty badly.
This isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed my time playing multiplayer in Baldur’s Gate 3. The game’s huge amount of freedom opens up a lot of fun possibilities for goofing around. Is there any better prank than pushing a dear friend off a very tall cliff? That said, trekking through a long game like BG3 requires a serious emotional investment from all involved, which can be harder to maintain in a multiplayer setting. There is also a classic issue that Baldur’s Gate has inherited from its Dungeons & Dragons origin, which makes it hard to finish a full game with others.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s Story Suffers In Multiplayer
Multiplayer Makes It Harder For All Players To Interact With Story Elements
Multiplayer combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 is a lot of fun and is one of the main reasons I’ve enjoyed playing with others. However, the same can’t be said for the story elements. While the overall narrative remains the same in both versions, how you interact with it changes drastically when playing with friends.
During dialogue scenes, only one player can talk for the entire party. While others can help make decisions, it still feels a bit less like a group effort when it comes time to talk to someone. Often, the party member with the highest Charisma score and social skills like Persuasion will end up doing most of the talking, to avoid missing out on any unique solutions through dialogue. This can lead to the rest of the party twiddling their thumbs during role-play-heavy sections of the game, and the party’s face feeling a little guilty for monopolizing game time.
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Interacting with companions is also more difficult in multiplayer. In parties that have less than four players, companions can help fill your empty slots. However, the companion will be assigned to one of the players, and the rest of the party will be locked out of interacting with them. This means players will either have to sacrifice getting to talk to some of the game’s most interesting characters or else constantly fiddle with who is controlling a companion just to have conversations. Things are slightly easier, but not much better in a party of four.
A Party Full Of Tavs Makes Companions Less Interesting
You Lose Connection To Companions When They Just Sit At Camp
Although having a party of four players makes it easier to interact with companions, it also has the unfortunate side effect of taking away some of your connection with them. When your companions are constantly staying back at camp, they don’t really feel like part of the action. If anything, they just seem to be following you and your friends around while you do all the work. This makes relationships with them in a multiplayer run of Baldur’s Gate 3 a bit less rewarding.
When I play through Baldur’s Gate 3 on my own, I’m not just attached to my companions because they are well-written and well-acted (though that certainly helps). A big part of my connection to them comes through gameplay. Gale isn’t just charming and witty, he’s also the one who saved me from a Phase Spider by hitting it with a Fireball. Lae’zel can be harsh, but she also tanks damage for me while I do Sneak Attacks. These gameplay moments build a connection between me and my party members because we rely on each other to stay alive.
Losing this connection to the game’s story and characters can make it hard to find the motivation to stick with it for 75-100 hours.
In multiplayer, when companions are just hanging out at camp, this connection is gone. While yes, my friends and I could choose to play as companions instead of our own characters, that would create a similar issue. Something tells me I’d have a little less respect for Halsin if he pulled off his undies and chucked them at my face in the middle of a battle, as my friends are wont to do. Losing this connection to the game’s story and characters can make it hard to find the motivation to stick with it for 75-100 hours.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s Multiplayer Suffers From A Classic D&D Problem
Finding Time To Play Together Makes It Hard To Finish A Campaign
Although the narrative drawbacks to playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with friends are a major factor in not finishing, they aren’t the only ones. Many of my Baldur’s Gate 3 playthroughs have died for the same reasons as D&D campaigns do: scheduling. It’s hard enough to find a night of the week where everyone can get together, and even then everyone has to be in the mood to play BG3 instead of something else.
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The farther we get from Baldur’s Gate 3’s release and that initial hype, the harder it is to find motivation to play with friends. This is especially true because most of us have just played through the game on our own when it became clear we wouldn’t be able to finish it together as quickly as we’d have liked. That in and of itself is another major hurdle for multiplayer campaigns.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Multiplayer Is Hard To Get Into After Finishing A Solo Run
Some Enthusiasm For Finishing Baldur’s Gate 3 Is Lost After The First Time
I would never say that Baldur’s Gate 3’s story is a one-and-done type of deal. My many playthroughs of Act One have proven that. That said, I don’t feel the same drive to finish as I did the first time I played through the game’s story. I take my time a lot more on subsequent playthroughs, and space play sessions out a lot more. Without as strong motivation to finish the campaign, it can be difficult to try and do it again in a way that I find to be a subpar experience.
One aspect that has given me a lot of hope for the future of Baldur’s Gate 3’s multiplayer is the exciting new mods members of the community have been developing. Getting to play through new custom encounters with friends would be a great way to reinvigorate my interest in the game.
If these modded campaigns are more combat-focused, it would also mean not worrying so much about how the story suffers in multiplayer. While Larian knocked it out of the park creating a single-player experience, I’m hoping the community can finally convince me to play Baldur’s Gate 3’s multiplayer again.
- Platform(s)
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PC, macOS, PS5, Xbox Series X
- Released
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August 3, 2023
- Developer(s)
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Larian Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Larian Studios
