In video games, you definitely shouldn't try to lower your health on purpose, right? Yet here I am, in Divinity Original Sin 2, putting that logic right in the bin. At this moment, I'm actively trying to get hurt in the throes of a battle. I'm not even fighting back, I'm just spamming end turn for each party member until one character takes enough hits. Everything about it feels wrong – like I'm setting myself up to fall – but after seeing how this can play out if I do otherwise, I have to follow my instincts. If I just stick it out, I can avoid bloodshed. I just know it. I only feel confident to test this theory thanks to Larian's latest RPG, because if Baldur's Gate 3 has taught me anything, it's that the solutions or methods to resolve conflicts aren't always the most conventional ones.
Sure enough, the battle ends not with my death but when my character's health bar gets low enough. Everyone involved in the fight lives to see another day, and my resolve to hold back from retaliating is instantly rewarded as a result. I've been meaning to try out Divinity Original Sin 2 for years, and encounters like this one have me kicking myself that it took me so long. As a diehard RPG fan, I've long since had an interested eye cast on Larian's much-acclaimed adventure. After all, it has a lot of ingredients that speak directly to me: companions, romance, choice and consequence, and a hefty helping of role-play. It's been recommended to me several times over since it first released in 2017, but it wasn't until I mastered Baldur's Gate 3 that I truly felt confident I could get on with its systems.
