It’s a muggy evening in July 2026, and I’m staring at the Baldur’s Gate 3 icon on my desktop like it’s an old flame I still can’t quit. I’ve got the Ultimate Edition, all the patches and community mods, even that terrifyingly intricate ‘every NPC is a romance option’ mod that should come with a warning label. And yet, I can’t bring myself to click. Not because the game isn’t a masterpiece—it’s arguably the best RPG I’ve ever played—but because I know, deep in my bones, that launching it means signing a 200-hour blood pact with Faerûn. That’s a lot of coffee and sacrificed weekends, and as a guy who just turned 32, my time’s worth its weight in gold.

Then my brain, always the overachiever, pulls up a memory from my anime-binging days: Dragon Ball Z Kai. Remember that? The remastered, filler-sliced version of DBZ that chopped 291 episodes down to 167? That’s still a beast of a commitment, but instead of 111 hours of staring at screaming energy auras, you get the lean-and-mean 64-hour cut. And i thought, “Holy smokes, why don’t games do this? Why can’t I get a Baldur’s Gate 3 Kai?”

Let me drop some truth here: I’m not a skipper. Never have been. When I read a book, I’m the weirdo who reads the copyright page just to feel complete. I once rewatched The Godfather Part II because I sneezed during a pivotal scene and thought I’d missed a crucial eyebrow twitch. So when people talk about episode-skip lists for shows like Breaking Bad—yes, even the infamous Fly episode that everyone loves to hate—I look askance. Fly is brilliant, a pressure cooker of Walt’s guilt, and skipping it is like ignoring the quiet moments in a Rembrandt in favor of the big splashy battles. But games? Games are a whole different ball game.

In the gaming world, we’ve been skipping stuff since the dawn of pixels. Mario didn’t force you to collect every coin, and The Elder Scrolls didn’t hold a knife to your throat to clear every bandit camp. Optional content is baked into the medium like chocolate chips in a cookie—delicious, but not mandatory. I’m a self-confessed completionist-lite; I rarely hit 100% achievements, but I do tend to mop up side quests because I dread being underleveled for the final boss. Yet here’s the rub: in Baldur’s Gate 3, you kinda need that extra XP from those seemingly ‘optional’ encounters, because the combat can be tougher than a nail-studded knuckle sandwich. And even the main quest has moments that drag on longer than my aunt’s wedding speeches. The climax of Act 2, for instance, could lose a good chunk of its boss phases and I wouldn’t shed a tear. I love the game, but replaying it is like asking me to rewatch the entire Lord of the Rings extended edition every time I just want to see the Battle of Helm’s Deep.

This is where the Kai inspiration hits like a Spirit Bomb. What if Larian Studios—or any developer of these colossal epics—built a condensed story mode that trimmed the fat while preserving the soul? Not just a ‘skip side quests’ toggle, which we already have, but a developer-curated cut that would let me replay BG3 without clearing my calendar for a month. I’m not talking about slashing narrative quality; I’m talking about carving out the repetitive combat encounters that exist only for padding, and giving me an Act-select with a questionnaire about my previous choices so the important beats still land. Dragon Age: The Veilguard did something similar by letting you take a lore quiz before starting, so the world reflected your past decisions. Imagine that on steroids for Baldur’s Gate 3—a pre-game check-in that asks, “Did you romance Shadowheart, or was it Karlach?” and “How did you handle the goblin camp?” and then tailors a streamlined odyssey around those picks.

Right now, games are ceding this idea to YouTube. I can’t tell you how many “Baldur’s Gate 3 Story Summary” videos I’ve watched before a new patch drops, just to jog my memory without sinking in 50 hours of replay. But that’s the equivalent of reading the CliffNotes of A Song of Ice and Fire—useful, but soulless. A developer-made abridged mode would carry the emotional heft because it’s still interactive, still my choices, just without the busywork. And let’s be real: Larian knows this game better than any YouTuber. They could decide which fights are thematically load-bearing and which ones are just there to fill time like a commercial break. Vince Gilligan would never tell you to skip Fly, and I bet Swen Vincke would have strong opinions on what the minimum viable epicness for BG3 looks like.

But here’s the kicker, the banana peel under my high horse: even if someone halved my playtime to 100 hours, would I still drag my feet? Probably. Because I’m the problem, ain’t I? I’m the guy who once spent three hours deciding on my Tiefling’s horn style. The tension between wanting a tight, curated journey and my obsessive desire to explore every corner of Faerûn is the very thing that makes these games magical. Still, in 2026, with more games in my library than I’ll ever finish and a full-time job, I’d kill for a Kai cut. Until then, I’ll keep staring at that icon, promising myself this time I’ll just do the main quest, and immediately getting derailed by a talking cow.