Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Are there any cities/towns in BG3?

I know that eventually we will end up going to Baldur's Gate itself, if I am not mistaken. So obviously there will be a large city in the game. (Am I correct?)

However, I am curious if there are other towns or cities. I am forcing myself to not play too much of EA because I don't want to be spoiled, but I've played many hours with different builds, and have seen a fair chunk of the EA between that and watching people play on YouTube.

So far, I haven't really seen any cities or towns in any of the gameplay, trailers, or online playthroughs. Part of what I always loved in these RPGs, and especially BG, is going to the bustling cities, full of people, activity, NPCs, markets, shops, churches, taverns/Inns, etc. So far, this appears to be missing from BG3, and most of the game seems to juts take place in nature. Is that the case, or are there (or will there be) some towns and cities?

Nothing that feels like a town or city the inn is burning down the grove does not feel like a town, the village near has no villagers and is destroyed infestated by goblins

I don't know if there will be other towns or villages in BG3 but I'd like it if so. In the first game there were Beregost and Nashkel in addition to Baldur's Gate itself of course, in addition to smaller settlements, wayside inns, etc, and in BG2 there was ... was it called Tradesmeet? ... and I think a small village in the Umar Hills as well as Athkatla, and I'm sure other bits I've forgotten. So while I think it's very much in the spirit of its predecessors to have a fair amount of tramping around in the wilderness and abandoned ruins, and in the spirit of BG1 specifically to have a fairly long build-up to getting to the big city, I hope it will also follow them in not just having one settlement.

That said, the amount of work that needs to go into creating a town in BG3 will be significantly more than went into those earlier games, so I wouldn't blame Larian if they made Baldur's Gate itself the only major centre of civilization, with hopefully the odd wayside inn (that isn't on fire!) and trading post along with smaller settlements like the druid grove, goblin camp and Myconid Village. And I suspect that even with Baldur's Gate itself, it may not be feasible to explore the whole city, though I do hope that it will have different zones/neighbourhoods that we can go to, as with Baldur's Gate and Athkatla in the earlier games.

I don't think we know anything for certain yet, though, except that we will get to see (at least part of) Baldur's Gate itself.

Darn, really discouraging answers so far. I'm honestly a bit shocked that 25% of the game is in EA, with dozens+ of hours of gameplay, and there isn't even one simple fantasy town/village/city. Dozens of hours into the game and not a single Inn to rent a room? This is a staple of these games, and their vibe. Don't get me wrong, I love going out to the wilderness just as much, I don't want an urban-only RPG, but coming back to the cities and Inns is part of what makes D&D, RPGs, and Baldur's Gate what they are.

The only thing I can think of is that they put all their effort into making Baldur's Gate the city itself large and sprawling, rather than having other small towns. There are districts, etc. But I still think it is a mistake and a shame to not have any other civilization.

For me personally, RPGs and cRPGs like this sort of "begin" once I reach the first town. I'm kinda shocked to hear people are playing for 40 hours and never once even spend a night at an Inn? So 25% of the game is literally just woods, caves, ruins, and encampments? Disappointing to hear.

Actually, there are some chances that we will see a village at release :

Uh, we have no information regarding whether places like Beregost, Nashkel, Candlekeep, or say the Friendly Arm Inn will be added to the area near Baldur's Gate. The original game also had a settlement called Ulgoth's Beard, that was added in the expansion. I think it would be a good way to make connections to the original games, since Larian wants to make 'meaningful connections' to the original series.

These areas were not too large, Beregost was the largest, just a few quests between them really. However, I would be surprised it none of them made an appearance.

Yes, I'm hoping that we'll get a stop-off in the Friendly Arms Inn, at least, given that it is so close to Baldur's Gate. And it would be great to have a reason to visit Candlekeep. Within Baldur's Gate itself, we already have had at least one character in EA say that they drink in the Elfsong Tavern and to find them there, so it's reasonable to think that will make a reappearance. And at one point a Balduian PC can say that the Blushing Mermaid is their kind of pub, so it feels like that's a decent bet too.

Considering the map design of Larian even a big city will only be a couple of houses next to each other.

I'm not quite sure why you say that? You may well be right, but I'm not sure exactly where the tension lies.

To me, and admittedly the experience I have in software development has absolutely nothing in common with designing games, there's no obvious tension.

Take, for example, the druid grove. It has a bunch of NPCs including 3? merchants (Aaron, Dammon, Ethel, not including Matis and Mol), a big continuous multilevel area that's part of the main area map and four separated smaller areas (Zevlor's base, Mol's cave, the Enclave Library where Kagha is, and the underground passage). It seems to me that if you changed it to have different graphics to make the big multilevel area less cave like and more urban-looking, and instead of having so many NPCs out in the open put more of them in apparently enclosed buildings like the one where you find Pandirna (the injured tiefling) or the ones in Moonhaven, then changed the separated off areas to be something like an inn, a government building, and a couple of other bigger buildings (potentially with some combat-related questing going on) then you'd have the makings of a pretty decent small town.

And I don't see why that wouldn't be scalable to a reasonably convincing city, if you weren't trying to include a goblin camp, abandoned village, ruined temple and various other isolated buildings and areas on the same map.

If you're looking at what I'm looking at, I assumed that was the Friendly Arm Inn and surroundings, as it looks about in the right place, and in BG1 the inn actually comprises the tavern itself, a temple and some small houses (at least, there's definitely one, and I think there might be more than one). And of course, over the last 100 years it might have grown into a bigger settlement. Or I suppose it could be Beregost but it doesn't look big enough or far enough away from Baldur's Gate. Or I guess it could be some other completely new village that has sprung up over the century since I, at least, visited the area in BG1!

The settlement alluded to on the new BG map is found on the original BG world map as well, it was marked as a fishing village. It had a couple of quests attached to it: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/World_Map

Not that these places are the same settlements in both games, as I have no idea, but they have nigh identical locations.

It might be Rivington - an expansion suburb of Baldur's Gate on the south side of the river, built in the hundred years or so since BG1. Probably on the ahkheg preserve, so we might meet some angry rangers.

Ah! I suspected my geography of the Sword Coast had aged badly. Thank you.

And that's good news for my druid, who at least can hope to bag herself some Ankheg Plate Armour if they're still there underground. Though perhaps I culled too many a hundred years ago, which is why it was safe to build there. And now I'm thinking that a catastrophic collapse in the ankheg population caused by my ward of Gorion and other overenthusiastic cullers back in the day might be having unintended consequences on my new druid protagonist a hundred years later. Where are the shadow druids when you need them?!

Somewhat. There is Druid Grove and Myconid Colony, both with quest givers and traders. Without Temples and Inns, I am not sure how Larian could recreate a feeling of save heaven in BG3. We can teleport from anywhere to any fast travel point, so it doesn't really feel like we are venturing anywhere. Resting anywhere will teleport us to pocket demention camp/mini-camp, so resting while on the road isn't any different than in town.

So far, yes, but do we know that is always going to be the case? Presumably in the same way as there are special rest area maps in different parts of the game, there could be ones that were specific to an inn (or even a generic inn one) that we got when we chose to rest in an inn.

It would be nice if there were un-restable areas or zones, and if the areas or zones in which we were allowed to rest in clearly had a route to camp. This way it would feel less like a pocket-dimension and more like a safe camp fast travel, and there will be areas from which one cannot travel to camp (like dungeons). It would also encourage preparation before entering certain areas. Also, I think instead of being pocket dimensions, the camps should be implied as being somewhere near safe areas. In Act 1, it would make sense for the camp to be somewhere in the vicinity of Druid Grove (not inside it though), given the denizens of Druid Grove all come to party at your camp, or the members of the Goblins party at your camp after destroying the Grove.

To add, I would appreciate more limits on teleporation fast travel and a greater encouragement in exploring areas for exits or transitional zones. Do not like the theme park effect still. Do not like the theme park effect with an additional "teleport wherever you want and it's actual teleportation not fast travel."

Further, the "implication" of the camp within the world can be handled by a path that you can travel down and then take you into camp, or it can be handled by a brief piece of dialogue from your character about where the camp actually is, or it can be handled by a text box that just says where the camp is in the world.

I don’t see Larian changing their storytelling after act1. I assume camp cutscenes and NPC gathering there will still be a thing. Allowing us rest in specific inns would mean that they would have to be designed is such a way so they can support cutscenes. As such, I expect to perhaps get a home/inn themed camp, but not much more than that.

I am also sceptical if Baldur’s Gate city in BG3 will act like a cities/towns in traditional RPGs (BG1&2, Pillars of Eternity2), so a hub with questgivers, shops, inns. NPCs to recruit from which we would make escapades into dungeons and wilderness. I expect Baldur’s Gate to just be an entire new zone full of varied content, rather than a hub from which we would venture out for adventures.

If I recall accurately, the big city/town in DOS1 (and 2?) were pretty good, lots of buildings, shops, bustling activity, etc?


Yes, these things concern me as well. If it is just a bunch of theme parks with teleport stations at each one, that will really detract from the sense of scale and immersion. Also, I just find it silly that this group of civilized people is purposely spending all this time just camping in the mud every night, and never going back to a town/inn for some comfort, trading, entertainment, better food/drink, R&R, etc. It just seems so silly to me that this group is just roaming around and setting up camps all over the place and never saying, "hey, lets hit the Inn tonight." But even more silly that there are no towns or Inns to even go to!!

I love this game so far, it is my #1 most hyped game, but this does concern me, which is why I posted about it. If there are no towns, inns, markets, etc, and every zone is a theme park with a teleporter, with no travel, something will definitely be lost.

D:OS1 had the best city I have seen from Larian in the opening act. D:OS2 had a very tiny city in the 2nd act, and the whole final act took place in a city, though it was in the middle of the siege, so it didn’t really feel much distinct from previous wilderness levels.

I do feel this is this lack of traveling to and from that prevents a mental image of a town room being created, the way it happens in other RPGs.

This doesn't bother me at all. I'm happy to just head canon that the Netherese teleporters actually only work to jump from one portal to another, and that when I camp my party are actually walking to a safe space they've scouted out in the local area. As a result, I think of it as "cheating" if I rest or teleport without there being a clear path to a safe space or the nearest teleporter, but I don't need the game to enforce this, show me walking to camp or the nearest portal or, worst of all, force me to actually walk my party there. I'm happy for scenes in which nothing exciting happens to be cut!


Well, there would be an inn if the goblins hadn't set it on fire! I actually don't find it odd so far that we're camping in the wild. We've crashed in an isolated area overrun by gnolls and goblins and it's going to take us a while to find our way back to civilisation. I'm hoping that this will make the pay-off feel even greater when we do.

I do want to see resting handled differently in towns, e.g. needing to agree a price with a local innkeeper to stay there, and having a "camp" that looks like an inn suite whenever we rest in that town, with perhaps some different cutscenes we'll get when staying in an inn as opposed to camping in the wild, but I don't think this needs Larian to radically rethink their approach to resting, just use the mechanism they've already got in a clever way. Hopefully that's what they're doing!