Dungeons & Dragons' Next Adventure Is Perfect Follow-Up for Baldur's Gate 3 Players

The next Dungeons & Dragons campaign is a fantastic follow-up to Baldur's Gate 3, although the secrecy surrounding the new campaign has perhaps muted any kind of franchise synergy. Next month, Dungeons & Dragons will release Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, an expanded version of the classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver. While the first few chapters are a more detailed retelling of The Lost Mine of Phandelver, it quickly turns into an adventure involving the Underdark, cosmic horror, strange mutates, and creatures with psionic powers. Because of these themes, many Dungeons & Dragons fans speculated that the campaign's ultimate villains would be tied to mind flayers, one of the most iconic monsters of the game.

Mind flayers are enjoying a resurgence of sorts due to their heavy presence in Baldur's Gate 3, the new Larian Studios video game set in the D&D campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms. Players spend most of the game under the threat of ceremorphosis, the act of being transformed into a mind flayer, and mind flayer's obviously play a huge role in the plot of the game. Interestingly, mind flayers also haven't been featured as the main villain of a D&D campaign book for Fifth Edition yet – in fact, mind flayers are perhaps the most high-profile monster to not receive a full spotlight in a 5E adventure published by Dungeons & Dragons.

In a media preview that took place earlier this month, Dungeons & Dragons was mum on the ultimate villain of the new adventure, perhaps in an attempt to keep the latter chapters of the book a surprise for those who have already played through The Lost Mine of Phandelver. ComicBook.com has received a review copy of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk and we can confirm that the adventure heavily features mind flayers in the second half of the book. While we'll keep how they play a role into the plot of the campaign a secret for now, players will be able to face off against numerous mind flayers over the course of the adventure, including several new variant mind flayers. 

It's something of a surprise that Dungeons & Dragons isn't playing up the mind flayer connection between Baldur's Gate 3 and Phandelver and Below more, although that could be because Baldur's Gate technically already has a tie-in adventure. Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus serves as a prequel of sorts to Baldur's Gate 3 and is referenced several times in the video game. 

Is Baldur's Gate 3 the Best Dungeons & Dragons Video Game of All Time?

While Baldur's Gate 3 has been in early access for several years, the game has still drawn incredibly high sales and strong reviews and might go down as the best D&D video game of all time. Not only is Baldur's Gate 3 a Game of the Year contender, it's also set to make a major impact for Hasbro and the video game industry as a whole. Many developers and fans have talked about Baldur's Gate 3's lengthy development timeline contributing to the success of the game and many are wondering whether the industry should move to a longer development timeline for other AAA games.