Roll up, roll up!

Jess Kinghorn on why Baldur's Gate 3 is shaping up to be a natural 20 

With silver blades and red dragons, githyanki warriors fly between the realms to pry out the malignant influence of the tyrannical, tentacular mindflayers. Thousands of years ago this psychic menace reigned over an empire and enslaved the githyanki – to become one of them would be a truly cursed fate for a githyanki warrior.

And this is the abject horror Lae’zel is facing. Captured by the Cthulhuesque creatures, the silver-clad fighter has been implanted with an illithid tadpole that will feast upon her intellect before finally transforming her into another mindflayer within a matter of days. She's already in the throes of the ultimate insult by fate, then - and then she meets our tiefling bard.

Also abducted by mindflayers and also doomed to become one of them if nothing is done about the tadpole swimming around their grey matter, a hero of your own creation can take centre stage in this roleplaying adventure. This is in addition to Origin characters like Lae'zel, who you can either play as or otherwise meet and party up with as your own custom protagonist. It's up to you, and believe us when we say that here your choices really matter.

GET THE BAND TOGETHER

The mind flayers alarmingly fleshy ship is under attack. Githyanki dragonriders give chase as it skips between realms, even side-swiping the Hells. Fire and what we can only describe as the ship's viscera lie all around when Lae'zel hears footsteps closing in. Ready to draw a blade on the red, horned creature before her, Lae'zel is stopped short by a bizarre sensation ripping through her mind.

Flashes of memory not her own overwhelm - whistling notes of a flute, the smell of freshly baked bread, and then the image of her own face through the eyes of another.