It has been three-and-a-half months since I last playedBaldur’s Gate 3. When you take into account the weeks I was traveling for Christmas, a vacation I took at the beginning of the new year, and the two weeks my PS5 decided to stop working and had to be sent in for repair, that leaves about two-and-a-half months when I absolutely could have been finishing my playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3, but decided not to.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Like Bloodborne Before
This is my deepest gaming shame at the moment because I know where it can lead. This yearI made it a New Year’s resolution to finally finish Bloodborne. I boughtBloodborneat Best Buy on a whim back in 2017, played dozens of hours of it, had an incredible time, and quickly crowned it one of the best games I’d ever played. Problem was, I had recently started reviewing games for a site on a volunteer basis, and had to delete Bloodborne to make room on my PS4 hard drive. I didn’t come back to it until 2024.
That’s six-plus years between starting and, fingers crossed, finishing Bloodborne. I had a similar experience with NieR: Automata that same year, and never went back to knock out those last few endings.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Displaced By New (And Old) Games
I like Baldur’s Gate 3 just as much as Bloodborne, but I just didn’t have time to finish it before heading to my home state for the holidays in December. And when I got back after my vacation, I wanted to hit the ground running with Bloodborne, so I started devoting time to that. ThenThe Last of Us Part 2 Remasteredcame out, and I had to replay that. And, of course,Prince of Persia: The Lost Crowngot great reviews, so I picked that up. And, obviously, I couldn’t miss out on thePalworldphenomenon. And, woah,Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthkinda snuck up on me – gotta play that. While I struggled to juggle all those new releases, my wife made slow and steady progress in Baldur’s Gate 3. Despite me having a 60 hour head start, she beat the game while I twiddled my thumbs.
This is also preventing me from branching out to other similar games. I’ve thought about checking out Shadowrun and Planescape: Torment, but I just can’t bring myself to start another CRPG while I still have 40-ish hours to go in this one.
The result is that I’ve seen a whole bunch of late-game stuff in Baldur’s Gate 3. I’ve seen the ending and camp epilogue already. I know how certain character arcs end, or at least how they did in my wife’s playthrough. I was rarely actively watching her play, but by virtue of being in the same room while it was happening, I’ve absorbed a lot of Act 3.
I don’t want to give in to this feeling, because I know how much it bothered me that I didn’t finish Bloodborne for all those years. When you meet a new favorite game, it really seems like you should finish it. I’ll come back, Baldur’s Gate 3. I just need to conquer these dark urges first.
