Highlights
- Baldur's Gate 3 is full of odd and fun encounters that enhance the exploration experience, with interesting narrative choices and unique battle gimmicks.
- Doppelgangers are effectively used in the game, creating tension and forcing players to confront their strengths and weaknesses.
- The use of doppelgangers in the third act is particularly notable, with Orin manipulating players and infiltrating the party, leading to effective storytelling and gameplay implications.
Baldur's Gate 3 is littered with odd moments and encounters that add a lot to whatever area players are exploring. From interesting narrative choices that can change the fate of a given location or even a battle with a unique gimmick, it seems like Baldur's Gate 3 has something fun around every corner.
Since it is a fantasy game, many genre tropes appear and are used to great effect. One such example is how doppelgangers are used. Be it a living illusion or a shapeshifter taking an ally's face, doppelgangers can dramatically drive up the tension while forcing the characters to confront their strengths and weakness, something the game ends up excelling in at several intervals.
Why Doppelgangers Work Well in Baldur's Gate 3
Partway through the second act, players will be made to delve into the Gauntlet of Shar, a ruin that also acts as a testing ground for Dark Justicars serving The Lady of Loss. It's a sizable dungeon that makes places face off against various trials to collect umbral gems to reach the end. These act as puzzle challenges that test players' abilities in several fields such as navigation and stealth, but the highlight is a combat trial that pits the party against themselves.
Players can begin this trial as soon as they find the ancient temple housing the Gauntlet of Shar, and what they will be greeted with is a party with identical gear and abilities. This means that while this fight can potentially be cheesed by unequipping weapons before heading into the fight, it might still be a challenge, as this mirror party will come at the group with everything they have, given the lack of concern over preserving spell slots.
It's an interesting way of seeing players' strengths and weaknesses from the enemy's perspective, and it can be devastating having overpowered builds turned against the cast. The fight is mostly normal beyond that point, but the doppelgangers' ability to go invisible can be annoying, especially if the player lacks AOE abilities. There is still a lot of worth seeing such a direct mashup and any nuisance is more than made up for with an upgraded Spear of Night that's one of Baldur's Gate 3's best spears.
Where Baldur's Gate 3's use of doppelgangers truly excels is in the third act when players finally reach the titular city. Players by this point are introduced to all the central antagonists, with one of them being Orin, a bloodthirsty shapeshifter who is also Bhaal's Chosen.
Orin goes out of her way to toy with the player, taking the shape of different people she abducted and most likely killed. This psychological manipulation culminates in disguising herself as a party member she had kidnapped to hold hostage to blackmail players to kill Lord Envor Gortash first since the pair fell out. Instead of having a moment where players are forced to decipher who the real party member is, Orin using her doppelganger powers to infiltrate the team before playing her hand is a far more effective narrative use that has gameplay ramifications for Baldur's Gate 3 party compositions.
Smaller moments where doppelgangers are effectively used to heighten tension can be found throughout th game, as they have infiltrated various groups by killing and replacing the actual members. This creates several small and terrifying surprises as the full extent of Orin's twisted idea of enjoyment is slowly revealed over many hours. It's always an uncomfortable surprise to kill an enemy only for it to be a shapeshifter, or discover areas where the victims have been disposed of. Players might not unearth everyone who is a shapeshifter, but that only adds to how effectively they have been implemented.
Baldur's Gate 3 is out now for PC and will release September 6 for PS5.
