Baldur's Gate 3 has spawned a wealth of fan art and fan fiction, but less has been said of the many fan-made song covers, both vocal and instrumental. Luckily, the game's composer and music director, Borislav Slavov, recently shared a surprising artist's cover of one of the RPG's most iconic songs, and folks, it's gotten stuck in my head like an unexpectedly pleasant Illithid tadpole.
"Enchanting voice," Slavov said of the 'Down By The River' cover from Nerissa Ravencroft, a vtuber under the Hololive agency owned by Japanese company Cover. The cover was released just three days ago but – no-doubt a function of Nerissa's near-500k YouTube subscribers – has already surpassed 200,000 views, and I'm beginning to see why.
Repeated, inexplicable intersections of Hololive and gaming discourse have taught me quite a lot about this quietly massive community, from fighting fan games and wholesome MMO moments to irresponsibly good Vampire Survivors clones and amusing Deep Rock Galactic invasions. But I think this is the first video game song cover I've seen from Hololive, and what do you know, it's an all-timer.
Played side-by-side, Nerissa's version is strikingly close to the original song performed by Nariya Anastasova, but I might actually prefer parts of hers. There's a verse at 1:37 where she dips a bit deeper into her register as some more chest-voice power cuts through the song's soft, vibrato high notes, and it just hits an amazing tone. I was casually listening to this song in the background, and it was nice, but that little verse was the moment I jerked my head up like a prairie dog on alert, confirming that I did indeed hear what I thought I heard.
"I played the hell out of [Baldur's Gate 3] and, honestly, it's gotta be one of my favorite games of all time," reads a YouTube comment from Nerissa. "Would highly recommend giving it a try if you haven't already! 'Down By The River' completely captivated me to the point where I had it looping nonstop for multiple days."
Slavov certainly knows how to pick 'em. The composer's Twitter feed is a feast of fan covers, mostly instrumental arrangements.
Beautiful cover!💚 https://t.co/wbFEI0b3W8September 17, 2023
Deep and dramatic 💚 https://t.co/AdLRAWXBvmOctober 2, 2023
The cover of the night! 💚 https://t.co/SrwUov8JSRSeptember 28, 2023
The best romance story in Baldur's Gate 3 happened to Shadowheart in real life: "I wanted to hate her when we first met, but to me, we were enemies to lovers."
