Baldur’s Gate 3 finally gave us a peek at the city itself, and I’m over the moon
As we inch toward Baldur’s Gate 3’s 1.0 release at the end of August, Larian has been sharing more looks of the game beyond its first act. Baldur’s Gate 3’s latest trailer at the Summer Game Fest finally showed us Larian’s interpretation of Baldur’s Gate itself, one of the iconic RPG cities, and the sight of some of my beloved old haunts in full 3D has me giddy.
I’ll get to beloved star of stage and screen Jason Isaacs in a second, but first: Sorcerous Sundries. One of my biggest questions about Larian’s follow up to Bioware’s classics was how the Studio would bring the city to life, and the shot of this magic emporium’s stained glass dome dappled in the morning light and doing justice to BioWare’s original pre-rendered background art had me grinning. Earlier in the trailer, I also clocked something that looks a lot like the Harbor Master’s building in the docks as well.
These landmarks feel like old friends to me, and the presence of (at least an homage to) a more second-order site like the harbor office betrays a love and attention to detail on Larian’s part that has me more excited than ever to come back to this city. I’ve been craving the feeling I got when I saw the Witcher 3’s version of Kaer Morhen, a loving brick-by brick recreation of the fortress from 2007’s The Witcher in a shiny new graphical engine, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s first glimpses of the city delivered that. It also just feels massive in a way that Divinity: Original Sin 2’s Arx did not, and I can’t wait to just get lost in sidequests in this place.
As for Jason Isaacs, he’s been one of my favorite character actors since his turn as Soviet Marshall Zhukov in 2017’s The Death of Stalin, and his VO performance in The Last Worker was a real highlight of that game for me. Isaacs is playing the delightfully Forgotten Realmsily-named Enver Gortash, who seems to be a political rival making moves in Baldur’s Gate with the help of an army of clockwork golems. His slimy charm and seeming good publicity remind me not only of Hugh Grant’s character in the D&D movie, but also Sarevok’s political plays in the original game. Looks like this city never learns, eh? Part of me also wonders if Larian has any more celebrity VOs in store to match Isaacs and the previously-announced J.K. Simmons.
Summer Game Fest host Geoff Keighley also reports that BG3 is still on track for its August 31 release date according to Larian boss Swen Vincke, so it won’t be long now until we’re back in the house Balduran built.
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