As we reach the launch of Baldur's Gate 3 (and early access today) on Playstation 5, I wanted to share some tips & tricks for playing the game with a controller. Since the game is a CRPG first and foremost, some learning and adjustment to the gamepad controls are needed for an enjoyable journey. It's a very long game after all.
Basically, here's the overall layout for gamepad controls. It covers (almost) everything and should cover your needs throughout the game.
- L2 – Manage Party – This allows you to cycle through party members, switch the main character, and group different characters together.
- R2 – Shortcut Menu – This brings up a wheel with the Character Sheet, Journal, Combat Log, Long Rest, Short Rest, Go To Camp, Turn-Based Mode, Map, Alchemy, and Level Up menus.
- L1/R1 – Character Actions – These cycle through the wheels with all of your character actions, including attacks, spells, and items.
- L3 – Cursor – This acts like a mouse cursor you control with the left joystick.
- R3 – World Information – Hold this down to see all NPCs' vision lines and highlight any objects on the map.
- View – Map – Select this to jump straight to the Map or hold it to load the Journal.
- Menu – Game Menu – This brings up the main menu options, such as Save Game, Load Game, and Settings.
- D-Pad Up – Jump – Use this to bring up the AoE for a Jump command or hold it to switch the character's light source.
- D-Pad Left/Right – Previous/Next Target lets you cycle between interactable objects near the current character.
- D-Pad Down – Examine/Hide – Press down to examine whatever item is currently selected, or hold down to force every party member into stealth mode.
- X – Interact – Press this to select things, confirm an action, or hold it to create an AoE showing all interactable objects near the selected character.
- Square – Context Menu – When selecting an object, this will bring up a menu with different options, such as picking up an object or giving it to another character.
- Triangle – End Turn – This ends the current character's turn in combat.
- Circle – Cancel/Exit – Press this to go back or cancel a selected action.
Some things that I noticed as I played through the game and read the discussions from gamepad players on PC, people seemed to not utilize some of the control functions, which hinders their experience while playing with a gamepad. Here's some tips according to my experience with the game so far.
Exploration
It's pretty simple, you move your character with left stick (L3) and rotate/zoom camera with the right one. It may feel like a proper console RPG playing the game with over the shoulder camera while exploring, but it also has its drawbacks. You may encounter enemies and trigger combat if you're not careful with your surroundings, so it's best to sometimes zoom out and click your left stick (L3) to scan the area up ahead. If you highlight something (item/NPC/enemy) and hit d-pad down, you can examine them and see their stats, strengths, and weaknesses.
Some of the most used functions while exploring are jumping and hiding, which can be easily used by tapping d-pad up (jump) and holding d-pad down (hide). Your companions will follow your actions so you don't need to manually manage them, for the exception of jumping. In certain cases, if your character has a high strength, it will be able to jump further than your weaker companion, so they may not follow you if jump to a distant ledge unless you manually control them or let them use Misty Step. If your character doesn't have the see in the darkness perk, you'll need to toggle light source (like a torch that you can equip from inventory screen) in certain places by holding d-pad up.
Looting
This is kind of tricky if you only rely on interact (X) button, since there are so many items cluttered all over the place in the world of Baldur's Gate 3. Clicking and hoding the right stick (R3) will reveal all the important loot on your screen, but not all item. Items with red highlight are not free to loot and you need to steal them in discreet. If you took the wrong item (stealing), it will trigger negative reaction from NPCs who caught you in the act. Sometimes you can get away with it, sometimes you need to pay/go to jail, sometimes, it immediately leads to combat, depending on the NPC/faction. Context menu (square) is useful for a lot of things, including lockpicking, sending item, moving & picking up object, etc.
To avoid picking up the wrong items, you can either cycle between targeted item in front of you with left and right d-pad; or you can also press and hold interact (X) button to get a list of loot surrounding you. It's the best and safest way to loot in my experience. Target cycling doesn't always work great since it'll only cycle between items in front of you, but it's still useful for cycling between NPCs that you want to interact with. When talking to an NPC with owned items near them, it's best to wait for a second until you and the NPC stop moving, then you can interact safely. Sometimes the cursor would move to an item near them, and you'd be stealing it instead of talking to them.
Inventory Management
Now this is what I believe the biggest hurdle of using a gamepad to play this game. It works for the most part if you only need to switch gear for you or between your companions. But it gets more complicated as you progress further in the game and loot more items, your character's inventory will be messy in no time with all kinds of items. First thing that you need to do is sorting your inventory by item types so you'll at least get the general idea on where you should be looking at when you're searching for something. That said, rare items will be prioritized on top of your inventory, then sorted by their item types, so it may get cluttered in later parts of the game especially with rare consumables like potions, arrows, and scrolls.
Which lead us to the next point, companions. In my case, I usually spread the items according to their types to certain companions. For example, I give all the scrolls to mages like Gale or Shadowheart since they might find them useful when their spells dried up after battles. As for arrows, I give them all to my archer Astarion so he may unleash additional damage or effects to his ranged attacks. On top of this, you can also make use of the pouches and bags. For example, put keys in keyrings, all the books and scrolls in a bag, alchemy & crafting ingredients, arrows, bombs, etc. So every once in a while, you can put your new stuff in their respective bag to reduce inventory clutter. You can also spread the bags to your companions, so that your main character won't carry all the weight and they can use them in combat. To choose/mark multiple items, you can press R2 so you don't have to send them one by one. This also works for trading with merchants, especially after you amass a lot of gears from your adventuring.
As for foods and supply camp, it's best to not hoard them all since they don't sell much and would clutter your inventory easily. You should also send them all to your camp storage since they will only usable in camp. Speaking of inventory camp, it should be the main storage for your unique items and gears. Sometimes you'll come across some interesting gear that nobody in your party can use right away, so you can send them straight to camp. Gears, especially armors, are among the heaviest items that you shouldn't carry around at all times. You can bring accessories and trinkets with you though.
Action Wheel & Combat
Action wheel(s) is basically the replacement for hotbars on kb+m. You can use it in and out of combat, from attacking, using spells, skills, and items. Outside of combat, some spells are also useful to improve your dialogue checks, stealing, or simply reaching distant ledges. You can fully customize the wheels, including adding spells and items (even bags with consumable inside); or you can also move them around the wheels so that the most used actions will be immediately available to you on the first wheel. Your action wheels might look pretty simple and straightforward early on, but don't forget to rearrange them after you get more spells and actions since they can be very cluttered if you let them be.
In combat, your action wheels will show which kind of weapon you'll be using when choosing an action/skill. If you want to open with a ranged attack, make sure you choose the ranged weapon icon and see the silhouette (attack preview and percentage) before pulling the action. It's because some skills can be used by both melee and ranged weapon. To choose your target, you can cycle through enemies with left or right d-pad for faster targeting. And as mentioned above, you can examine your target to see their stats/strenghts/weaknesses with d-pad down.
To see most of the pictures above in action, you can watch the video here (not mine, btw):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-rkRe6Grk8
If you have some questions or want to add some tips that I missed, do post away and I'll try to answer them as much as I can. Hopefully this helps!
