Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Class based quests

It does? How? O_o

That is some impresive mental gimnastic (is it how you call it?) there ... i would say at best it prooves that we dont know how (nor evwn if) Larian would implement it ... and therefore we cannot take any aproach as granted.
(As i allready said btw.)

The feeling is mutual ...

Especially when you are twisting my words in order to risicule them, while completely changing their meaning ... effectively arguing with yourself in the end. :-/
But no worries, i will be the one who gets the warning, as usualy.

We see a big ship break the main watch tower, kill (as far as they see) dozens of people from every social group then get chased by dragons

I mean yes it's a fantasy game but I assume that's not the normal week at the gate city?

Kidnap, not kill. You can see the people appearing on Nautoloid with the same effect. The city in cinematic isn't Baldur's gate. It's Yartar (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Yartar). That's not a normal week for the city, but in general for Faerun setting it's normal to have some conflicts boiling and exploding all the time. Check the history part of that wiki-link for example.

It seems to be the only source that says its Yartar though. The images used are all from Baldur's Gate 3 (but no concrete sources or reasons given).
For personal reference, the update that added the images from BG3 and details in the "History" section were added at 11:40PM, 2 March 2020‎ by Ruf67 (an admin of the fandom).

Are there any official sources for this? I personally can't find any.
Why was that connection made with Yartar ? Is this based on the official descriptions of the two cities compared with Baldur's Gate 3's opening cinematic?

Because of those questions, at this point, from my perspective, this feels more like speculations and a fan just decided to make it "official" on the fandom wiki 🫤

I'm asking because I'm legitimately curious btw 😅 That would be interesting if true!

It was said by Swen in one of their old videos.

Yes. I am distrubed that I knew where to look. 11:30


One of those very weird narrative choices - showcasing a city that is not the title city, with no explanation what it is, no reference to it so far. Just random city getting wrecked because it makes for a cool cinematic?

On the one hand, this ups the odds that Baldur's Gate won't be in turmoil from a nautiloid attack. Which is good in my books. On the other hand, if we weren't taken from Baldur's Gate, how does that square with our player character pote tially being from there? Will we get to acknowledge why we were in Yartar? Because the cinematic heavily implies that we were taken from there. Or is it just going to be the case that our kidnapping won't be acknowledged?

Our character isn't always from Baldur's Gate. Not all of our companions from BG and looks like only Astarion was kidnapped there and it's still not clear if he was taken directly to the Nautoloid or dragged out of the city first. Shadowheart was on her mission somewhere, Wyll says he was kidnapped while camping. The rest are not baldurians.
For all we know it's either baldurians are somehow preferable targets for the Absolute or it's all just a funny coincidence or our character being baldurian is just a placeholder.

Yeah, that makes sense. Like I said, the opening cinematic just heavily implies that we were taken from the city in it, and I had assumed that was Baldur's Gate.

Again, weird choice.

In the cinematic Laez and PLAYERCHAR are already captured and tadpoled before the attack on Yartar takes place. So presumably at least those two were captures and tadpoled before (I think Astarion specifically was captured in BG, no?). With how quickly things events happen from Yartar to the attack and subsequent escape, I would be willing to assume that ALL playable characters were imprisoned and tadpoled before the attack, however, Karlach supposively jumped into the ship and got tadpoled sometime between the end of the intro cinematics and end of the tutorial, which just seems rather bit off considering what mindflayers seem busy fighting hellspawn and Gith intruders.

I suspect that narrative importance of the attack on Yartar is very simple - showcasing how Mindflayers capture their targets and how, more or less, you and companions were captured before the cinematic started without having to create specific capture scenes for different backgrounds. In the cinematic you just see an example of how you could have gotten captured.

I was about to write how wasteful it is to create expensive, 6 minutes long cutscene that has so little things to convey, but at the same time it does set up the game very well - overproduced, narratively basic and yet somehow still convoluted and confusing . I am being overly harsh on it though [the cinematic, not the game :-D] - fairly empty, visual spectacles, establishing tone rather then plot or characters have been a staple for RPGs. But the confusion regarding what it is that we have seen and the need for clarification from Sven isn't a great sign.

*the usual disclamer that the game isn't finished, the intro might be revised and/or Yartar and dead mindflayers on the ship might become relevant to the story once the game is completed.

Edit1. Would it be too crazy to suggest that the cinematic is for EA only? It will be very weird if we we choose Laez as our origin, no? Seeing her being tadpoled, and then cinematic turns to us, but we are also her? Also doesn't she kinda play semi tutorial role right now?

Thank you for the information!


I agree. Such a weird way to introduce/communicate that it's Yartar. A little disappointing as well.
I hope that Yartar will have some importance later then. Even then, I'm unsure how they are going to tied it with the rest of the story with so little (or none from my knowledge) information about which city is being attacked during the cinematic. The average player won't see this interview and will think that's its Baldur's Gate. And, in my opinion, that's bad storytelling. But, I will hold my full judgement until full release.

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To return to the main topic, I don't have a definitive opinion on it yet.
I think that, as long as it doesn't lock key story element (including companion cutscenes), I could be fine with it.
Even though, I fear those would force stereotypical characterization onto our Tav, solely base on their class. So, I'm a bit reluctant but I won't fight against it.

I'm on the same boat!


I like that idea, but I won't hold my hopes to high 😅 We shall see ^^

There is one interesting detail about this cinematic: it was outsourced (search "Unit Image"). And so far Larian scratched off or changed to the point it's unrecognisible a lot of originally outsourced content. As if they were outsourcing placeholders.

It would make me scream aloud if I saw a brand new cinematic playing before the Character Creator on my first playthrough.

I have also nothing against seeing an Origin Character in it whilst waiting to venture forth with my own Tav.

Honestly I find the Karlach thing to be the weirdest and most annoying timeframe aspect. It really doesn't make a lot of sense and I don't expect them to do much work to change that.



Honestly I don't think Yartar will be important and I don't necessrily think it should be either. It's a city that was attacked and I don't think we as the audience really need to know much more than that. Maybe there'll be a brief explanation about the mindflayers getting more aggressive, or the nautiloid we were on breaking protocol with such a brazen attack or something, but in terms of the broader narrative, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference.