Write the review of the PS5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 It's a bit like going back in time, to those years of youth when we tend to look at the world with an innate and sincere carefreeness. While they delicately grabbed those paper manuals of role-playing games, with the intention of studying their technicalities from top to bottom, savoring the character designs and bestiaries, their minds flew unhindered and without blinders, stopping at that imaginative, epic, out of the ordinary. -Adventure in this world of time. Heroic deeds often existed first in our heads and dreams, and then on the gaming table.
If it is true that today there are few teams capable of making us dream so brutally with our eyes open, it is also fair to congratulate Larian Studios and not only for having returned us to the Forgotten Realms. They stepped in and took us by the hand, completely immersed in palpable enthusiasm, with no marketing crusades to coddle us. Baldur's Gate 3 is giving us all the genuine desire for fun we feel around that master screen, with four dice, a few character sheets, and a river full of joy in our hearts.
Why this upbeat song on the PS5 version, you ask? Well, because without mincing words it is the version that will most introduce new acolytes to the lands of Drizzt: girlfriends, cousins and old friends who barely know what a GPU is or old players with family and little space at home. Sometimes you just need a nice, persuasive red carpet and this console version is bewitching like an enchanting spell, excellently capable of translating the quintessence of the PC RPG on pads.
An arduous mission, but not impossible.
A version that works
If you're here it's probably because you're a console gamer eager to get your hands on one of the Game of the Year contenders. We talk about it at length in the review of Baldur's Gate 3 for PC, where we analyze in detail all the game systems and the reasons that make this RPG a unique experience. Here we want to focus on the PlayStation 5 version, the only one that, for the moment, allows Larian to reach a different audience than the historical one, the niche they had tried to conquer thanks to the collaboration with Google and Stadia. In fact, you will already know the problems that have plagued the Xbox Series S and split-screen cooperative, an element that inevitably caused Microsoft's entire batch of hardware to be postponed. It's coming later this year, but this means that if you don't have a PC (or streaming services that rely on it), the PS5 version is the only way to play Baldur's Gate 3. What'll make you happy is that it's a work done meticulously, skillful, aware of the limitations of a gamepad and wisely capable of exploiting non-revolutionary but useful mechanisms for the purpose; The fact is that you could have known all this even by watching the videos of the PC version played with a controller, since that is the mechanism. However, we can confirm to you, after a good dose of hours on the console, that the radial flow works and the console experience packaged by Larian on PS5 has convinced us in a big way.
We could dedicate many words to convey to you how well the interface works, the reality is that it is precisely the entire playful flow that gives us good feelings. Of course, there are microdefects, perhaps the result of too much ambition and wanting to use all the functions of the gamepad, such as the haptic resistance of the right dorsal: a small pressure keeps the character's radial active to eliminate it immediately afterwards, a lot of pressure blocks it until a greater entrance, or the change of character with the left side, the same logic, but applied to the characters. In our opinion it was not necessary to launch into this style exercise with such enthusiasm, but that's fine. Instead, we liked the option to map immediate commands to other keystrokes, which makes everything simpler and faster.
Cooperative and split screen
We were a little surprised to see so little attention from the team to split-screen co-op: a feature like this, also refined compared to that of Divinity: Original Sin 2, has always seemed potentially revolutionary for all those eager to enjoy. Do it at home with your partner or friends. Larian Studios is very honest: faced with a performance mode at 60 frames per second (not always) and a quality at 30, it clearly anticipates that split-screen cooperative. activate quality mode (but only during gameplay, not in shared cutscenes or dialogue). Does this make the experience worse? Not at all, in fact, it's a lot of fun to immerse yourself in the Forgotten Realms talking and comparing yourself to someone sitting next to you, imagining strategies, commenting on events, all while knowing that your half of the screen has a life of its own. allowing you to enjoy the title like very few others. There are elements that you have to learn to chew, such as the presence of audio errors in the management of cross-conversations or video errors that sometimes seem to block the game for a few seconds (not to mention making the video disappear from the screen ), but they are small bugs that we are sure will be solved with the first updates. After all, it's a role-playing game and the fun is also navigating inventories, coordinating who does what and who talks to someone, deciding which character is best suited to that skill test and, above all, deciding who's in charge. to the different characters.
However, a small annoying note must be made, always in the hope that it will be fixed: the multiplayer mode is actually a big insertion of the second player into the first player's game and this is noticeable thanks to the (very annoying) solution . presence of the host name in the corner of the screen. We have not been able to remove it and sometimes it transmits the idea of being to the second player. plus a secondary character who is the protagonist of the adventure, which in reality he is not: you just have to get past this little mental joke and convince yourself that the game's treatment of "prominence" is relatively fair and determined by what you do and where you go. In any case, progress and group management are perfectly adjustable between players, each one is free to take their own character, manage the characters they want and live their own adventure on the game host's console/account. We had fun? A lot, seriously.
The advancement and elegance of the interface offer a step forward compared to Divinity: Original Sin 2, bringing together the entire infinite range of Dungeons & Dragons possibilities in just a few keys. We were talking about performance - it would be dishonest to say it was an easy job, but we sincerely hope that Larian solves a whole host of optimization issues when playing split screen. There are obvious moments of CPU overload, other perfectly visible minor errors, there are even those who complain about losing their save. Larian still has a lot of work to do but for now we can confirm that the PS5 version restores full dignity to a gigantic and exciting title.
Conclusions
Tested version PlayStation 5 digital delivery PlayStation Store Holygamerz.com 9.5 Readers (75) 8.9 your voteBaldur's Gate 3 is an incredible product and the PS5 version manages to convey this world of wonder so well that we think you can't wait to get your hands on it. A competent, comfortable, versatile conversion, immediate in its cooperative use thanks to a seemingly simple but functional split screen. Larian manages to bring his adult son to the console, providing PS5 owners with a title capable of transporting them to one of the most beautiful Dungeons & Dragons settings ever created and above all paying a huge tribute to one of the video game sagas most iconic of the west. roles. We don't know what the future of Bioware will be, but we know Larian's present and honestly this is enough for us.
PRO
- Competent and functional port.
- Immediate split screen and the true protagonist of the role-playing experience.
- In singles he performs very well.
- The interface is elegant, deep but easy to learn.
AGAINST
- The cooperative brings with it some technical glitches.
- Some additional interface customization options wouldn't have hurt
