Baldur’s Gate 3 Saved My Life

It’s no secret that so much happening in the world feels overwhelming and uncertain. From global conflicts, to economic strains, to housing crises, and beyond. It often feels, at least for me, that the only comfort that can be found is hiding away at the end of the day and escaping into a game for hours on end, just to forget for a time. But for a while, even that failed to provide the comfort I had come to rely on for so long. 

Back in October of 2023, I became one of the millions of Americans laid off in the tech industry due to “restructuring,” as so many of these companies have come to call it. As heartbroken as I was, it wasn’t the pain of losing that particular job that felt like a gut punch. It was knowing that I faced a job market that was increasingly competitive with less opportunities. 

For nearly eight months, I made job hunting my full time job. Hundreds of applications, tailored resumes, cover letters, emails, all leading to no more than a handful of interviews, and an endless flood of “We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.” It was beyond discouraging, it was soul crushing. And despite it all, as a streamer, I continued forcing myself to show up to streams every day with a smile on my face and an assurance of “I got this, it’s gonna happen any day now.” But the longer it took, and the more my savings account began to dwindle, the more scared I became. 

In June of 2024, I finally found a job, but the joy and relief was short lived. When walking in on my first day, I realized the company that hired me had not been honest with me about the type of work I’d be doing, and I found myself in a job I was unequipped for and deeply unhappy with. Of course, I had no room to be picky, so I told myself I would suck it up and make the best of it until I found something better. But boy oh boy, it was bad. Upper management was terrible, my manager was a total misogynist, and every single mistake I made led to being yelled at and degraded. I came home every day and just sat on my couch and cried. I cancelled streams, stopped playing games almost completely, and found myself doom scrolling on Instagram or TikTok until forcing myself to go to bed (not that I ever got any sleep). 

As the months dragged on, I kept much of my depression to myself. After so many months of job hunting, I had no right to complain. And surely, being a cancer survivor, I’d been through worse. I kept telling myself I was being a baby, to just suck it up and deal with it. But I couldn’t help but feel that for how hard I’d fought to overcome cancer, how hard I’d fought to stay alive… if this was all it was for, then I should have just let myself die. Yeah. It was a dark time. 

When I realized that that was where my mind was going, I knew I needed to do something for myself in the short term, even if it was just to give my serotonin-starved brain something to focus on for a few hours at a time. Baldur’s Gate 3 had been a longtime comfort for me up to this point, so what if we dialed it up a notch? And so, the absolutely insane idea of starting an Honor Mode run was born. 

For the uninitiated, “Honor Mode” is the highest difficulty setting in Baldur’s Gate 3. There is no “save scumming,” all enemies have increased health, and high level bosses have additional “legendary actions” that pack a punch in combat. But most importantly, if your party wipes during combat, the run is over and you must start again. The stakes are high, and every obstacle is stacked against you. 

You may be asking yourself, “So Clare, why would you put yourself through this at a time when you were already stressed and trapped in a doom spiral?” Honestly, fair question. As it turns out, if my brain has something else stressful to focus on, but an outcome that I can predict, it’s like a serotonin cocktail. I spent the first few hours treading through the early game as though I was playing “the floor is lava” except everything was lava and I was actively burning to death. I started watching YouTube tutorials, reading through detailed walkthroughs on Reddit, researching different character builds that could yield the most success, and more. Even when I wasn’t playing the game, I was strategizing. At work, when I was getting yelled at by my boss for forgetting to respond to his email “in a timely manner,” I clenched my jaw and thought about my next in-game combat encounter. I chatted about strategies to my coworkers, even though I knew most of them didn’t care. I lived and breathed The Run, as I began to call it. If I couldn’t control the hellscape I was forced to walk into every day, I sure as hell was going to control the fantasy hellscape I willingly chose to dive into. And by God, it worked.

I started looking forward to streams again. I started being able to compartmentalize my pain and stress outside of work. I felt excited and riveted to dive into each session, knowing the risks and doing it anyway. And every time I beat an encounter or succeeded on a ridiculous dice roll, it felt like I’d won the lottery. The euphoria was electric, and it jump started my brain out of the depressive fog I’d been trapped in for so long. There was hope, and I had control of my destiny. 

It’s amazing how aspects of our gaming life can translate into real life. As the fog lifted, I rediscovered the motivation to search for a new job in earnest. When I wasn’t at work or focused on The Run, I was throwing myself back into job applications with a renewed sense of vigor. I could control my life’s direction in the same way I controlled this spunky halfling druid traipsing through the Underdark. Failure wasn’t the end. It just meant dusting off and trying again. 

The Run taught me that I hadn’t lost that fire to win, that desire to create the best life for myself. Which again, I know is weird to say as someone who literally survived cancer. But the brain is a weird thing. Every challenge is unique and processed differently, no matter what it is. No amount of “I survived X, I can totally survive Z” will ever be constructive, because as humans, we encounter each trial differently. Our experiences inform how we will react to those trials, and looking back, I have a hell of a lot of experience in the art of winning. 

The Run continues, much like life, now that I’ve left that hell job and found a job that is fulfilling and rewarding. When I do finally cross that threshold and earn my golden dice, the in-game reward for completing the Honor Mode challenge, it’ll be another notch on the proverbial belt. It just so happens that it’ll be the most important notch in recent years. And I’m just fine with that.