Baldur’s Gate 3 Tactician Difficulty is Like a “DM Trying to Push You to Your Limits”

Larian Studios revealed several new details for Baldur’s Gate 3, from how romances work to the seventh and final Origin character, The Dark Urge. It also confirmed the third antagonist, Orin the Red, played by Maggie Robertson (Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village). The developer also confirmed that Tactician difficulty is returning.

As the highest difficulty in Divinity: Original Sin 2, Tactician pushes players to their limits. While it still increases the stats and aggressiveness of enemies, you can also expect several small additions to increase the difficulty.

Larian senior combat designer Matt Holland said (transcription via PC Gamer), “We have it in two layers: there’s the base layer that all the characters in the game are gonna get⁠ – that’s the basics like just increasing HP or making it easier to hit you. Then there’s the local layer. We’ve gone through every single combat in our game, and we’ve added little bits of spice to make that combat shine just a little bit hotter and be that much harder.”

It demonstrated how on Balanced, which is the standard difficulty, two Monks defeated some Goblins. However, on Tactician, those same Goblins now have fire arrows, and there are barrels with oil and explosives at the town’s entrance. “Brutal AI. We want to make it feel like you’re going up against a DM that’s trying to push you to your limits,” said Holland.

Other interesting tactics include enemies attacking your casters when they try to cast spells that require multiple turns and ignoring traps. As CEO Swen Vincke notes, “You’re gonna start playing on Tactician because ‘you can handle it,’ then you’re going to start crying. You’re going to say our game is bad⁠ – it’s not our fault! It’s you!”

For those who want to experience the narrative, Baldur’s Gate 3 will have a Story Mode. There’s Hardcore Mode, which also makes the AI tougher, though how this works with Tactician (if at all) remains to be seen.

Baldur’s Gate 3 launches on August 3rd for PC, while PS5 players get it on September 6th. A single playthrough will require 75-100 hours, and doing everything requires about 200 hours. Of course, with the content and replay value, Larian believes players won’t be done in just a month.