10 Best Underground Areas In Video Games
5. The Underdark (Baldur's Gate 3)
Due to a backlog that could plug the River Nile, this writer's only just got round to Baldur's Gate 3. Fortunately, Larian's much-lauded masterpiece has proven to be worth the wait thanks to its stellar writing, immersive-sim level of freedom and its willingness to get Flight of the Conchords-level freaky.
Baldur's Gate 3's directors have spoken about how they hope their game's success can encourage other developers to be as weird as they like, and they certainly practised what they preached. The Underdark may initially look like every standard fantasy underground area - it even starts with a fight against a Floating Eyeball Boss Monster™ - but by the time you've finished exploring it you'll have potentially:
- Befriended a sentient fungus colony.
- Obliterated a gnome-terrorizing cult.
- Fought a robot in an abandoned tower.
- Fought an even bigger robot in an industrial forge the size of a football stadium.
- Struck up a conversation with a friendly, immortal ox.
The Underdark, then, is Baldur's Gate 3 in a hypogean nutshell - constantly surprising, always engaging and really bloody weird.