Larian had the surprise commercial and critical game release of 2023 with their D&D-based RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. For a special Christmas Eve surprise, the developers have posted a new YouTube video where the game is being played by two actors who are well known for playing roles in a high fantasy movie trilogy.
The video, which was shot just after Baldur’s Gate 3 won Game of the Year at The Game Awards earlier this month, features Elijah Wood and Sean Astin. In case you are unaware, they played the Hobbits Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, respectively, in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Wood and Astin are helped in their Baldur’s Gate 3 game session by Larian’s CEO Swen Vincke. After creating the characters, the actors go on a quest. As you might expect the video does have some Lord of the Rings references. At one point, Astin’s player character is seen just after he kills a giant spider, which Samwise had some experience with in Return of the King.
At another point, Wood’s character has gotten hold of an evil artifact and is later urged to throw it in a lake of lava, so of course Wood is reluctant to do such a thing. We won’t spoil what happens after that.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on the PC, Mac, PS5, and most recently on the Xbox Series X and S consoles. Wood and Astin are actually playing the game with Xbox controllers in the video but it’s not clear if they are playing the Xbox version or the PC version with Xbox controllers.
Larian has plans to release physical editions of Baldur’s Gate 3 for PC, PS5 and Xbox platforms in the first quarter of 2024. They will be bundled with several physical extras as well.