The Best RPG of 2023

Finally, there’s Baldur’s Gate 3, IGN’s

best

RPG of 2023. Before its release, one observer I know wondered aloud how the most anticipated PC RPG in years could be flying so far below the radar. Then everyone learned

about

the Bear Sex, and one of 2023’s biggest

gaming

phenomenons was born.

Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t just one of 2023’s best RPGs – it may well be the best RPG ever made. Recency bias, you say? Perhaps. But Baldur’s Gate 3’s

writing

, characters, and storytelling are every bit the equal of its illustrious protesters, and arguably match up to genre holy grails like Planescape Torment. It’s also the most significant triple-A PC RPG since BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins – glorious proof that turn-based RPGs can be every bit as successful as their action-based counterparts.

It’s impossible to rate Baldur’s Gate 3’s overall impact, especially when it arguably isn’t even a finished work, but there’s no doubt that

Larian

Studios has forced developers across the industry to rethink their assumptions about the genre. And speaking of Larian, it has finally fully arrived as one of the industry’s great RPG developers, assuming the mantle relinquished by BioWare. We will no doubt still be talking about the adventures of Karlach, Lae’zel, Gale, and the rest in the years to come, especially as fans complete their second and third and fourth playthroughs (I mean, you have to do the Dark Urge playthrough at least once, right?)

In the meantime, raise a toast to Baldur’s Gate 3, one of the best games of 2023, and an RPG that will go down in history as one of the genre’s seminal accomplishments.