After struggling to finish Divinity: Original Sin 2 the first time, I’ve fallen in love with Larian’s previous hit RPG⁠—and it isn’t just the Baldur’s Gate 3 afterglow

After my Baldur’s Gate 3 bonanza in August and September, I was Baldur’s Gate 3 hungover, and needed the videogame equivalent of a Full English Breakfast to fill the Baldur’s Gate 3-shaped hole in my being. I turned to Larian’s previous RPG hit, Divinity: Original Sin 2.

I’d known I had to give our 2017 game of the year another playthrough even before falling in love with everyone’s 2023 GOTY-apparent because the weird thing was, I left my first playthrough of D:OS2 kind of sour on the whole thing.

I was definitely along the ride for most of the way, but the final act seriously pissed in my soup, both mechanically and story-wise. With Baldur’s Gate 3 an easy all-timer for me and D:OS2 100% my kind of game, I figured this was at least partially a me problem and not just a Divinity: Original Sin 2 problem. It deserved the old college try.

Gear up

A big part of my issue, I now realize, is how different gear, skills, and the basic flow of combat are in Original Sin 2 versus any other CRPG I’ve played. Even though I haven’t dabbled much in 5th edition, Baldur’s Gate 3 still plays like the D&D videogames I grew up with. My old friends like saving throw, AC, attack bonus, and multiclass were all here and accounted for.

What’s more, BG3 has the sort of gear economy I always crave in a single player RPG: magic items feel special, with a one-off quest reward or an amulet purchased from an erudite hobgoblin having the potential to change your entire character build while remaining usable for the rest of the game.

D:OS2 has an almost Diablo-like system of semi-random, leveled gear by comparison. I thrashed against that in my first playthrough⁠, holding onto gear for longer than I should have or choosing equipment pieces based of secondary or tertiary benefits (stat bonuses, on hit effects) as opposed to their cold, hard DPS/armor values. That left me with underleveled gear and underpowered characters, especially in the final act of the game.

I fully embraced my equipment’s throwaway nature this time, making the rounds every time I leveled up to purchase the latest stuff for my key slots. Once I went with the flow of D:OS2’s constant stream of disposable magic swords, the game really clicked for me like never before.

I’d still rather have an RPG where the best gear is deliberately placed by a designer, lending this feeling of it being a reward and something you can sit with for a long stretch of the game, but Original Sin 2 is now the lone single player RPG whose leveled, semi-random loot system I don’t mind, and even kind of appreciate.

Minoring in Divinity buildcraft studies

Original Sin 2’s skill system intimidated me with its myriad complexities, but now that I understand it better, I’ll be damned if it’s not a thing of beauty. The completely modular system has no classes, only skills and attributes, with character creation choices offering helpful archetypes to inspire your builds.

There’s no reason not to pursue fun, hybrid characters, especially when some of the game’s best abilities are its goofiest and most unique. Even my edgelord dual daggers protagonist would cut loose with some chicken polymorphing and malicious teleportation.

I had to dig into Reddit, YouTube, and Steam guides (shout out to Sin Tee, who’s also probably the best in the game when it comes to BG3 builds as well) to get my accreditation on this stuff, because I still find Original Sin 2 a harder game than Baldur’s Gate 3. I’ll probably bump the difficulty from normal to Tactician my next go around of D:OS2, but I don’t know if I’ll ever touch its permadeath Honour mode. Meanwhile, I’m already halfway through one such playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 as I write this.