After beating what should be the hardest Baldur's Gate 3 challenge ever, masochistic streamer raises the bar with a diabolical plan: “Honor Mode, solo, without using any consumables”

A Baldur's Gate 3 character holds a gold goblet.
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Twitch streamer Luality likes accomplishing inconceivably difficult challenges with a smile. This is evidenced by her happily beating an Elden Ring boss using a dance pad instead of a controller and by completing Baldur's Gate 3 without resting, sex, or really any of the other RPG's integral mechanics. But that BG3 challenge wasn't difficult enough, apparently. Luality has decided to embark on a new BG3 quest to finish the game "Honor Mode, solo, without using any consumables."

"No health potions, no elixir, no lockpicks, nada," she says in a YouTube clip. 

Within the BG3 community, solo Honor Mode is a fairly standard extreme challenge. For it, fans have agreed upon rules and advice to make beating BG3 alone, on its most difficult setting, more bearable. But Luality's decision to ditch consumables is an anomaly. This level of self-punishment has hardly ever been seen before outside of a monastery. 

"Oh, so this is what a sadomasochist looks like," says one very upvoted comment on YouTube

"She's demented," says another. "But she's also the greatest BG3 player we've got." 

So far, Luality has spent over 30 hours existing in a more deadly Faerun. In a recent stream, where she's in the middle of her third challenge attempt, Luality panics for hours while trying and failing to defend the grove. While Luality struggles, a giant bunny she modded in twitches unhelpfully in the grass. Finally, luck wins out, and so does Luality. 

"Can you guys fucking believe that we won that shit," she exclaims, "after literally fighting all the Tieflings that were almost killing us, the goblins almost killing us?! We didn't use a single speed potion, a single health potion, a single scroll, a single [Void Bulb], nothing!" I can't believe it, but I'm glad it happened. 

As the Prince of Persia Metroidvania team disbands, Baldur's Gate 3 dev says if Ubisoft wants "subs over sales" then "developers must get used to not having jobs."

Ashley Bardhan
Contributor

Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.