My FPS-loving husband and I have been slowly working our way through Larian’s wildly popular RPG over the past few months via the Xbox’s comfy, casual, couch co-op option. “A new challenge run for mum”, as our son uncharitably called it. Much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, our painfully insightful teenager wasn’t wrong. Honour Mode, the ultra-hard “to wipe is to fail” challenge which, yes, I am going to mention I cleared on my first try almost the instant it got patched in, has got nothing on a co-op game played with someone who is so unfamiliar with the genre they have to be reminded to go and speak to the wonderful characters wandering around. Spell slots? Advantage? Potions? Finesse? Following the plot? Those are details best left to other people.

Meaning me. I’m “other people”.

And that’s OK, Baldur’s Gate III‘s an intimidating game at the best of times. Even people whose shelves are crammed to bursting with Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks need to spend a few hours adjusting to the avalanche of delights found in here. I knew what I was letting myself in for before we started, and, at least in theory, I was fully prepared. I had imagined myself acting as some sort of bodyguard for my husband’s adventuring: he could do literally anything he wanted to and it’d always work out in the end, because I knew there was no trouble he could get himself into that I couldn’t sneak attack him out of. In co-op the game’s almost unbelievable malleability would be more than just a bullet point for a nerd like me to swoon over as I pointlessly mumble something about “reactivity” to myself, it could be harnessed to our advantage. The game’s astonishing degree of flexibility would help a newcomer explore, experiment, and get comfortable with one of gaming’s oldest genres. After all, there are no wrong choices in a game this eager to roll with whatever trouble the party causes. You refuse someone’s request, the game carries on. You side with Person B instead of Person A, the game carries on. You watch as the love of your life cleaves Mayrina’s head in twain with an axe before you’ve had the chance to explain that there are several ways to check which of the two remaining people on the battlefield is a distraught pregnant woman and which is a baby-swallowing hag disguised as one, the game carries on.

What I hadn’t really appreciated when we began was that after decades of follow-the-waypoint training and just knowing that no matter how they’re presented most “choices” in games of any genre tend to amount to picking either “Reaction A” or “Reaction A(1)” (often for all sorts of perfectly valid reasons), comprehending the truly extraordinary level of freedom found in here is something of a major hurdle in itself. Yes, you can just shove someone into a chasm instead of fighting them properly. Things covered in oil will burn, and that fire can spread. We really don’t need to have an intense heart-to-heart with someone who is obviously evil and spoiling for a fight if you’d rather cut straight to the part where we fire an arrow into their face, the sudden attack surprising them in the process.

I should have known, really. I’ve played the game for over 700 hours now, and I’m still—without artificially engineering my playthroughs or consciously doing anything different—coming across new events, or new resolutions to old events (and this is before we get into all the additional scenes Larian have added on top since the game’s launch). My husband didn’t get it. How could he? What other games go to these lengths? No gentle reassurances from me that there was no right or wrong way to play, that we really could just go poke around somewhere and see what happened because honestly, something always happens in Baldur’s Gate III when you go poke around somewhere, were enough to make him feel comfortable. My little dream of being the Sword Coast’s mightiest bodyguard was in tatters.

But it had been a bad idea from the start, really. If you’re travelling through a strange new land and you’re trying to have a great time you don’t want someone with one hand on their weapon and a keen eye for threats hanging around, you want a friend happy to links arms and introduce you to all of their cool fantasy mates. Someone who can show you all the fun little bits most people miss, who can say “Hey, do you fancy becoming the god of some fish people?” and knows two different ways to have one of your eyes removed.

So I became the Sword Coast’s greatest tour guide instead. Our equipment is beyond terrible, because bartering with shopkeepers just isn’t as much fun as anything else we could be doing. We couldn’t organise a coherent battle plan even though our lives frequently depend on it. And my husband has somehow managed to avoid any and all romantic events—no, even just flirting—in a game he’s playing with his literal wife and where most companions start undressing you with their eyes the instant you do something vaguely nice and talk to them about the weather after. Lae’zel, normally pretty keen on getting naked the moment you’re covered in blood, isn’t interested in his dragonborn barbarian. Gale has made no rambling mentions of cats, belly rubs, or that book he read on post-battle horniness.

I’m pretty sure he lost his character’s underwear a few days ago too.

It doesn’t matter. Goodness me, why should it when we’re having this much fun? My husband’s finally getting to see what all the fuss is about, Astarion’s kiss animations played out on my character more often than he’d like, and as a extra little treat he also gets to see just how willing I am to murder anyone who isn’t definitively nice if they happen to mildly inconvenience us. “I thought you were playing a good character?!” he said. She is good. But that is—and if I’m honest it was Baldur’s Gate III that made me see my usual Chaotic Good alignment in a new light—not the same as always being kind. In return I have the honour of playing this incredible game for the first time, twice. I have no idea what we’re going to do or what will happen afterwards. I’ve been chewing my nails as my husband mulls over dialogue options I’ve clicked through almost a dozen times. I love it.

And I love that none of this would be happening without my husband’s chaotic, inexperienced, input. Everyone should play their favourite games with their partners, even if—no, especially if—that game’s something you wouldn’t normally play together. It’s a privilege to share something that’s brought me so much joy with him. It’s humbling to be brought low by a pack of goblins because my effectiveness in battle largely relied on everyone I wanted to have in the party for that fight doing what I told them to do when I told them to do it while wearing exactly what I thought was the best equipment for the job, like a spoiled child who won’t let other people play with their toys. It’s a joy to watch him take the lead more often, making big decisions that’ll leave permanent marks on every second that comes after.

It’s the most memorable game of Baldur’s Gate III I will ever play.

Another session this weekend? Yeah, I think so. Technically I already know what can happen, but what will we do, our little disaster party unlike any other? I’ve got no idea. But I do know I can’t wait to find out.