Kotaku spent 100 hours in Baldur's Gate 3 and still forgot to bring a scorecard.
The Original Review
“Baldur’s Gate 3 is proof that Larian Studios knows how to capture that spirit and develop in pursuit of that feeling.”
Kotaku's Baldur's Gate 3 review is the rare piece that proudly lists '~100 hours post-release, ~25 hours of early access' and then refuses to produce a score, like a tax accountant who audits your entire life and concludes with a watercolor of a frog. One hundred and twenty-five hours is enough time to learn conversational Italian, lose a custody battle, or personally assemble a mid-tier IKEA village, but apparently not enough to decide where this review lands on any measurable scale. The math aint mathing.
Instead of a rating, we get Kotaku's little data casserole: 'LIKED,' 'DISLIKED,' 'TYPE OF GAME,' and a 'BACK-OF-THE-BOX QUOTE' section, which is less a review rubric than a cereal box having an identity crisis. The single listed dislike is that the game 'can often feel obtuse and lacking in clarity,' but the review itself then performs interpretive fog machine choreography for several thousand words, like a lighthouse reviewed by a moth who keeps saying visibility is complicated. If clarity matters, maybe do not hide the verdict inside a paragraph shaped like a wizard's therapy journal.
The funniest part is that the article clearly loves the game, explains why, gives examples, documents playtime, identifies friction, and then swerves away from numerical judgment at the last second like a spreadsheet saw a dragon and fainted. Kotaku wants all the authority of criticism with none of the accountability of calibration. A score is not sacred, but refusing one after this much evidence is like bringing a ruler made of soup to a building inspection and calling the puddle 'nuanced.'
To be fair, this is not lazy in the usual press-junket sense; it is worse in a more artisanal way. The review is thoughtful, personal, and clearly experienced, but its scoring system is a locked chest with no key, no tooltip, and a sticky note that says 'vibes.' Professional criticism should let readers compare, weigh, and argue with the verdict. This gives us a beautiful diary entry wearing a review lanyard. Lovely writing, suspicious math. The math aint mathing.
