I haven’t touched Baldur’s Gate 3 since early October, which is the longest break I’ve taken since I started playing it at launch. My last save file was close to the end of Act 2, shortly after letting Jaheira die and writing an article about it. After publishing it, readers were writing to me for weeks. I received a veritable barrage of emails, DMs and tweets informing me that I can, in fact, save Jaheira by adding her to my party as she won’t have to replace anybody I’ve already got with me, and it will make it a lot easier to keep her alive. I hope you all are happy, you’ve turned me into a liar. My article said that it was no longer my problem that she keeps getting herself killed, and now I’m making it my problem again because I know there’s an out.

Of course, this means I’m going to have to reload an old save and lose some progress. It’s not like I’m losing a ton of gameplay time, probably just an hour or so, but the set-up with which I play Baldur’s Gate 3 already disincentivises me from playing it. My problem is that I absolutely hate sitting at my PC. In fact, I kind of hate sitting upright at all. I prefer to be horizontal as much as possible. I am aware this is terrible for my health, and I’m trying to be better, I swear! I do try to work sitting upright, which is why I’ve made it a point to work at a desk most of the time, but when gaming, I prefer to be as cozy as possible. As much as possible, I will be in bed, under the covers, controller in hand.

Even when I was a kid, I’d play Xbox lying sideways on the couch in the basement, neck craned at an uncomfortable angle to see the screen properly. To now have to spend hours a day sitting at my PC in a somewhat uncomfortable chair, trying to finish a campaign as long as Baldur’s Gate 3’s, is one of the lesser circles of hell for me. When I first got hooked on the game, my butt hurt all the time. I was upset, but I couldn’t stop playing because the game was just that good.

Fun fact: this feature is partly inspired by a brief but insightful thought I typed out in my notes app several months ago when I first started playing the game. It said, “played bg3 so much my butt started hurting and it won't stop hurting. bruised tailbone? I need a better chair??”.

Now that I’ve spent some time away from the game and weaned myself off the constant dopamine hits it gives me, and because I know I’m going to have to redo some difficult battles, I have much less of a desire to knowingly plant my bum in a chair that I know is going to cause me pain. I’m too old (read: older than 23) to be subjecting myself to such discomfort. It’s cozy vibes or nothing, especially considering I always end up playing for far too many hours in a row. Xbox players will finally get a confirmed release date for the Xbox port on 7 December at The Game Awards, and I’m already busy working my way through other games to decide on my final GOTY list, so I’ve decided to wait. Yes, it hurts me that I likely won’t finish the game until next year, but I’ve come to terms with the consequences of my choices. I just hope that Baldur’s Gate 3 really does come to Xbox before the end of the year.

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