Have you got time for Humble's latest collection of CRPG classics? No, you don't. None of us do, in fact. At time of writing, Baldur's Gate 3 is about 173 hours away from leaving early access (assuming it does so at about 4 pm BST). According to How Long To Beat, completing a "Main + Extra" run of all six games (plus one expansion) in the Baldur's Gate and Beyond bundle would take you 421 hours.
Even if you only try to take on the Baldur's Gate games in there, it'll take you 159 hours. Doable so long as you don't sleep between now and August 3 (PC Gamer does not recommend doing this, but I personally am curious to see you try).
But even if so-called science says you won't be able to experience the full breadth of these bangers before Baldur's Gate 3 eats up your August, they're still well worth picking up. The full list of games in the bundle is: Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 Enhanced Edition (plus the Siege of Dragonspear expansion for BG1), Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition, Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.
Several of these are bonafide masterpieces, some of our best RPGs of all time, and you can grab them all if you pay over £9.29 / $12. If you're excited for BG3 but haven't ever experienced the classics, I reckon they're still wonderful to go back to today. Yeah, there's a bit of gristle to work through—the game design of the late '90s and early 2000s wasn't as refined as today's—but Beamdog's enhanced editions do a fair bit to smooth down the rough edges.
The crowning jewels of this collection are BG1 and 2 and Planescape, some of the greatest D&D videogames ever made, but they're all more than worth playing and they all have their vociferous fans even today. Even stuff like Neverwinter Nights—a bit of a transitional fossil in the BioWare catalogue—has people who'll go to the mattresses for it in 2023 (not naming names, but it rhymes with Bed Sitchfield).
The odd duck is Pathfinder, and only because it's a modern game amid a gaggle of golden oldies. Wrath of the Righteous is pretty great, though: PCG's Jody Macgregor scored it 76% in his Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous review back in 2021, giving it some of the highest praise possible when he said "when you find the right path and are solving the world's problems while jogging across fields with your gang of colorful pals, it's like Baldur's Gate 2 never ended."
Baldur's Gate 3 player summons roughly 88 minions to conquer Honour Mode with a glorious army of spore zombies, elementals, and Scratch the best boy
Baldur's Gate 3 fans are discussing what coffee each character would order, and reckon Astarion would be demanding an 'iced venti oat milk latte with cold foam' topped with 2 pumps of hazelnut
