Every now and then, a game comes along that transcends its typical audience and achieves what every studio dreams of—reaching beyond its core player base, and in 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3 did exactly that.
The hype spread like wildfire through gaming spaces and Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) communities alike. At its peak, it reached over 875,000 concurrent players on Steam alone during its launch window. But beyond the numbers, what struck me was the diversity in how people were experiencing the game—especially the difference between seasoned players and those playing a game for the first time ever.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is an exceptionally deep RPG, rich with player choice and layered storytelling. But what truly fascinated me was how differently people approached its many challenges. Whether infiltrating a goblin camp or confronting even gods, players are constantly presented with situations offering multiple solutions involving combat, dialogue, stealth, or a myriad of everything.
Playing alongside friends who’ve been gaming for years, most encounters were tackled in predictable ways: through dialogue options or turn-based combat. A safe, familiar approach.
But when I played with—or watched—people who had little to no gaming experience, their creativity exploded. They approached problems in wild, imaginative ways that seasoned players rarely considered. I saw players stack barrels hundreds of meters high to bypass castle walls, or use spells in wildly unconventional ways to solve puzzles, poisoning cauldrons to cause swathes of Goblins to fall at their feet.
And that’s when it hit me, why are the people least familiar with games often the ones having the most fun?
The answer, I think, lies in how experienced players internalize the invisible rules of game design. Over time, we learn where the limits are. We know what’s usually possible—and more importantly, what’s not. In games like Marvel’s Spider-Man, we see detailed cityscapes but know we can’t enter most buildings. In The Last of Us, we might see ladders or boxes, but we’ve learned that unless the game tells us we can interact with them, they’re just decoration.
This invisible training subtly conditions us to think firmly inside the box. We’re often led through virtual spaces by clear indicators, and even when games boast open-ended design, that ingrained expectation of a “correct” solution persists. Think about the visual language many games use – the tell-tale “yellow paint” that screams “climb here!” causes us to disregard paths that feel too unconventional, passing them off as mere set dressing.
But new players don’t feel like they have those limitations. They haven’t spent years being told “no” by level boundaries or static props. When Baldur’s Gate 3 presents them with a choice, they truly believe they can do anything; they try, boy do they try. The results are often hilarious, inventive, and brilliant, such as painstakingly collecting every single barrel that’s come across in act 1 and meticulously placing them all around the goblin leaders before a conversation, you know is going to turn into a fight just to set off a chain reaction of explosions with a simple cantrip to end an otherwise drawn out combat sequence in a matter of seconds!
Perhaps the real magic of Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t just in its systems, story, or presentation, but in how it levels the playing field. It invites everyone, regardless of experience, to explore and create in their own way. And maybe, as veteran players, it’s time we take a page from the beginners’ book: to forget what we think we know and rediscover the joy of true experimentation. After all, the most memorable moments often come when we stop playing the game the way we’re “supposed” to—and start playing like it’s our first time. Something I believe has been lost with how we go through the motions of video games today.
So, the next time you load up Baldur’s Gate 3, or any game for that matter, try to shake off those ingrained gaming habits. Embrace the “beginner’s mind,” look at the world with fresh eyes, and ask yourself, “What if…?” You might just surprise yourself with the wonderfully crazy and effective solutions you discover. What unconventional approach will you try in your next playthrough? Or any of the 7 concurrent playthroughs you have going at the moment for that matter!