The perfect replacement for Amazon’s best fantasy series destroyed my life

Actually, it all started quite harmlessly: with the enthusiasm of my gaming colleagues. No matter whether MeinMMO, GameStar or GamePro, everyone was sure, rarely until now never having played a role-playing game as good as Baldur’s Gate 3.

The game for PC (and since September 6, 2023 also for Playstation 5) works like a pen & paper game: Everyone creates their own character with strengths and weaknesses, which they maneuver through dialogues, turn-based battles and terrain to explore . For certain actions, you decide whether you succeed – or fail dramatically – by rolling the dice. Actually anything can happen.

This comes at just the right time, I thought. Finally, Baldur’s Gate 3 takes place in the same universe as two of my absolute favorite fantasy titles of the last few years: the vastly underrated movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and the rightly acclaimed Amazon series The Legend of Vox Machina. And while I’m eagerly waiting for Season 3 of Vox Machina – why not just write my very own heroine story in a medieval-inspired high fantasy world where the best fictional animal species of all time exists: owlbears?

Baldur’s Gate 3 takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, like the film of the same name:

Forget saving the world: the best things about fantasy sagas are weird characters and inappropriate romances

My mission was clear after the initial mission: Find a way to remove the parasite that was inserted into me by octopus-like “mind flayers” from my brain. Oh yes, and save the world – or at least earn a lot of gold, buy cool weapons and sleep with all the NPCs for which developer Larian Studios has planned a sexy cutscene. (Because role-playing games know what many parts of society still seem to lack knowledge of: There are more than heterosexual relationships and that’s just as well.)

After almost an hour in the Character Creator, I had put together a muscular half-elf who, as a sorcerer, can cast powerful spells, but can also use her high charisma value to talk her way out of any situation. Perfect for people like me. I don’t want a playful challenge in role-playing games, I want to immerse myself in a world that is more interesting and less stressful than the real one. So I play on Easy – and try to avoid endless, tactically intensive fights.

I quickly got my crew of morally flexible ne’er-do-wells together:

Everything was ready to clear out bandit camps for a few hours, flirt with incarnations of the devil and test out how boldly my character Leesah (sounded more medieval) can lie to the faces of her fellow human beings and fellow beings. After all, watching heroes being assholes against their will has already happened most fun with the Dungeons & Dragons movie and the Vox Machina series. But then everything turns out differently than expected.

Better than Amazon’s fantasy highlight: Baldur’s Gate plunged me into a crisis of meaning

Instead of being the cool, unimpressed villain that I love in fantasy series and films, I quickly transform into an incredible softie. Half of my camp is in love with me? Who am I to break their hearts! The goblins just tried to wipe out me and the rest of my squad? Yes, it sucked, but torturing her now on behalf of an immortal general is going a bit too far for me!

Every decision feels elementary to me, the opinions of the (fictional! Made of pixels!!!) characters around me determine my entire actions. After hours on the couch, I wake up as if from a fever dream and realize: It’s already nighttime. The next morning I find myself in front of the Playstation with coffee in hand. Important decisions have to be made and I am the only one who can make them.

Do I sleep with Shadowheart, who is waiting for me with a bottle of wine, or do I play ball with the camp dog? If I choose the latter, will Shadowheart hate me? But if I do, will that hurt my chances with the toxic vampire of my dreams? The hours fly by. A new challenge awaits. Will I manage to drink a grotesquely repulsive, cursed monster under the table, or will the dice decide that I have to fight it after all? I am the incompetent protagonist of my own fantasy epic. The warm, soft center of the world melting away in front of the TV. Cool.

After 40 hours of playing time, in which I haven’t even completed half of the story, one thing is clear to me: Baldur’s Gate 3 is the methadone for my heart, which longs for new fantasy chaos. But instead of a 2-hour movie or 10-episode Amazon series, I have potentially hundreds of hours of entertainment that unfolds around me and my decisions. Why reality, I ask myself, as I frantically search for the charging cable for my PS5 controller and have long since decided to fill my free time with anything other than gaming in the coming weeks. Why reality if there are no owlbears in Berlin?

More fantasy in the podcast: Is Netflix’s The Witcher universe doomed?

In the third season, Netflix’s fantasy hit The Witcher says goodbye to Henry Cavill as the main protagonist. In the future, the Witcher will be portrayed by Liam Hemsworth. Can the series, with all its planned spin-offs, survive this setback?

We discuss with FILMSTARTS guest Sebastian whether Henry Cavill’s farewell was successful, what strengths and weaknesses the season 3 finale brings with it on Netflix and what’s next for The Witcher.

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