The Whole Party from Baldur’s Gate 3
Any one member of Baldur’s Gate 3’s merry band of tadpole-infected misfits could have stood on their own as one of the best characters of 2023. We could have put a spotlight on Karlach for her story of pulling herself through literal Hell for a chance to live among her friends. We could have unpacked Shadowheart’s deconstruction of her own religious trauma to become her own person. There’s even a reasonable case that Gale’s hubris breaking down as he grieves his relationship with a god is a profound intersection between religious adoration and romantic entanglement. But rather than single out just a few of them, we figured it would be most appropriate to recognize that Baldur’s Gate 3 has one of the best RPG casts in recent memory.
Their stories can go in wildly different directions depending on your choices as a player, but each of them is the hero of their own story. It’s ironic that the ticking time bomb in each of their heads that threatens to turn them into a grotesque Mind Flayer is often the least of their worries; it just expedites and underlines all their other troubles. Each of them is fucked up in their own way, and it makes half of them deeply unlikable for much of the early game. But Baldur’s Gate 3’s cast rewards every peeled-back layer, quest, and permutation you explore through Larian’s interpretation of this universe. This is a group of characters fans will be talking about for a long, long time. — Kenneth Shepard
You’ve heard our picks, who are some of your favorite video game heroes and villains from 2023?
