Baldur’s Gate 3 lore – story, setting, timeline

What’s the story of Baldur’s Gate 3? Few sequence have as deep and sophisticated lore because the Baldur’s Gate video games. It’s no marvel, as the unique two have been developed by the Mass Impact and Dragon Age creators, BioWare. Primarily based on Dungeons and Dragons, the unique video games have been packed filled with a whole lot of hours of role-playing enjoyable. Which means, in the event you’re heading into Baldur’s Gate 3 as your entry level to the sequence or returning after a long time, it is likely to be fairly intimidating to leap right into a recreation with lore developed over a whole lot of hours of gameplay. On this refresher, we’ve bought you lined regardless of your expertise stage with the sequence.

The BG3 lore isn’t the one intimidating side of Baldur’s Gate 3. As constructing your character is of utmost significance and may take eternally with so many choices pulled from D&D fifth Version guidelines, learn our Baldur’s Gate 3 classes information to take a look at the numerous totally different roles you may assume within the recreation and their subclasses. An equally essential alternative is to decide on your race, and we’ve after all bought you lined there, too: our Baldur’s Gate 3 races overview particulars all of the totally different advantages of every, from the dark-elf – or Drow – to the demon-like Tiefling.

Baldur’s Gate video games

You’d assume with ‘3’ within the title, there would solely be three Baldur’s Gate video games, however that’s not fairly the case. With large expansions for the primary two video games, spinoffs, and enhanced editions, there’s much more Gates of Baldur than you’d assume.

Listed here are the Baldur’s Gate video games up to now:

• Baldur’s Gate (1998)
• Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (1999 growth)
• Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (2000)
• Baldur’s Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal (2001 growth)
• Baldur’s Gate: Darkish Alliance (2001 spin-off)
• Baldur’s Gate: Darkish Alliance 2 (2004 spin-off)
• Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Version (2012)
• Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Version (2013)
• Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (2016 growth)
• Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)

What’s Baldur’s Gate?

To know Baldur’s Gate, you need to know just a little bit concerning the fantasy world of Faerûn. A part of the Forgotten Realms fantasy setting – which performs house to extra D&D modules and fantasy novels than we will rely – Faerûn is a continent on the harmful and adventure-ridden planet of Toril, and Baldur’s Gate is a big metropolis on that continent. The unique recreation principally takes place in and to the south of the town, alongside what’s referred to as The Sword Coast. Subsequent video games and expansions add extra areas in and across the metropolis or shift locales to close by settlements, such because the nation of Amn that lies to the south of Baldur’s Gate on the opposite facet of The Cloud Peaks.

These excessive fantasy locales characteristic a big selection of biomes, from dense forests and excessive mountains, to the subterranean Underdark that Dwarves and Darkish Elves name house. Briefly, it’s a massively in style fantasy setting for D&D, novels, and video video games.

Baldur’s Gate 3 returns the sequence to The Sword Coast, although you don’t go to the fabled metropolis within the first act of the sport. This a part of the sport takes place simply to the east of Baldur’s Gate, so stay up for visiting it throughout later acts.

When does Baldur’s Gate 3 happen?

In line with the builders themselves, Baldur’s Gate 3 takes place 100 years after the occasions of Baldur’s Gate 2 and shortly after the tabletop D&D module known as Descent into Avernus from 2019.

The D&D marketing campaign noticed the close by metropolis of Elturel disappear into the primary layer of the 9 Hells, known as Avernus. Moreover, the Grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate, Ulder Ravengard, went lacking. It’s canon that Elturel and the Grand Duke ultimately return on the finish of the module, however specifics of what occurs subsequent stay to be found in Baldur’s Gate 3.

It is extremely clearly a tumultuous time for the fabled metropolis and the encircling lands. Baldur’s Gate 3 begins with you kidnapped aboard a nautiloid, a ship utilized by the Cthulu-like thoughts flayers. Thoughts flayers journey between dimensions and have begun an invasion into Faerûn. They insert a ugly little tadpole into your eye that infects you and can ultimately flip you into one other thoughts flayer. That is the place the sport begins.

Do you could have performed pervious Baldur’s Gate video games?

You shouldn’t have to play the opposite video games to grasp what is going on in Baldur’s Gate 3. Nevertheless, Larian Studios has acknowledged that Baldur’s Gate 3 will relate to previous video games in significant methods; there are references to outdated characters and the occasions of, on the very least, the primary two video games and their expansions, and a well-recognized face or two even make precise appearances. That mentioned, the overarching plot seems to inform a very new story.

To recap the historical past main as much as Baldur’s Gate 3 intimately would take a number of thousand extra phrases, so dense are these video games, however with this data in hand you shouldn’t have an issue sinking hours into this Larian Studios journey. For extra data on this famend RPG sequence and its D&D 5e subsystems try our Baldur’s Gate 3 traits information, which varies dramatically per race, and our Baldur’s Gate 3 skills listing, which dictates the way you’ll work together with the myriad denizens of Faerûn.