A familiar itch has been making my fingers twitch of late: the urge to revisit Baldur's Gate 3. I'm not the only one to hear the familiar siren song echoing forth from the two-year-old game right now. Our Senior Writer and fellow BG3 aficionado Heather recently started up a brand new run, and the many (many) meme groups I'm in on Facebook seem livelier than ever.
But I credit part of my Faerûn craving to a totally different game. Namely, the new Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era demo that's captured my attention for the last week and a half. Exploring Jadame as multiple adventuring heroes has given me a taste for turn based strategy RPGs, and all the little nods to D&D's school of roleplaying have me hankering for something meatier. Hence I go into yet another jaunt to the Sword Coast, but this time, I'm trying to get as close to Olden Era's brand of herodom as I possibly can.
A not-so dark urge
In Heroes, all your playable characters make use of both magic and melee skills in combat. Lucky for me, Larian has just the melee-caster class for the job.
My snazzy Oath of Vengeance Paladin, built expressly following our BG3 Paladin guide, was made for this. She's half-orc and all warrior, traipsing throughout Emerald Grove and its environs with a pack of pals – or so they will be, once I get my relationship scores a little higher – instead of griffins and dragons. A part of me wishes I'd made myself a Dragonborn Paladin instead, just as a little nod to my favorite creature in Unfrozen's upcoming strategy game, but I'm trying to craft something a little less on-the-nose here.
I chose Oath of Vengeance for a very simple reason. The heroes you play as in Olden Era, or indeed any of the older-school entries in the series, aren't a bunch of goodie goodies. They might fight for their kingdom, but they aren't truly beholden to anyone. Order of Ancients felt too ominous, Order of the Crown is too monarchal for a Heroes-style wandering warrior, but Vengeance? Now, that I can get on board with.
Baldurs Gate itself is probably the Temple faction I suppose, being a thriving city governed mostly by humans
To truly get into the double-roleplaying headspace, I vow two things. Firstly, to spec my party members out in a manner befitting a Hero of Might and Magic.
That means necromancer Gale (aka, my lich), assassin Astarion (my infiltrator), and death cleric Shadowheart (well, magical heroes are mostly clerics in Olden Era) for starters. Secondly, I plan on doing all the Act One things I've largely skipped in many newer Baldur's Gate 3 runs. The temple of Jergal, fighting the Hag, anything to do with the shadow druids… I'm such a sucker for the gloomy glory of the Shadowcursed Lands and the entirety of Act Three's terrifying sprawl that I'm very much guilty of fast tracking my own way out of Act One's fairytale spiel.
But Act One is perhaps the most high fantasy part of BG3, and Heroes is nothing but the purest of high fantasy experiences. If you want to get technical about it, I see Act One's Emerald Grove and the surrounding locations as being akin to the fae-aligned Sylvan faction. Act Two is definitely Necropolis to its core, teeming with undead magic. Baldurs Gate itself is probably the Temple faction I suppose, being a thriving city governed mostly by humans rather than mystical creatures – and I guess it has bits of Dungeon once you pare back the shiny top layers a little. I mean... dragons.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. As I venture into the crumbling crypts of Withers' domain, smite goblins with my righteous longsword that I may or may not have pilfered from Lae'zel, and bargain with druids to protect those less powerful, I'm seeing these familiar places with a renewed sense of purpose. I've put hundreds of hours into Baldur's Gate 3 as it is, but now that I'm playing it in the mindset of a completely different kind of medieval hero, it feels refreshingly novel. This will do more than tide me over until Olden Era launches – it's cleansed my palate for many more turn-based adventures still to come.
There are plenty of upcoming RPGs to add to your wishlist if you've wrung BG3 dry - it's been two years, after all.
