Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Seriously? No proper ending?

Okay, as someone who played BG3 from EA and spent plenty of time in act 1 enjoying every last part of it and testing different classess, I can't help but feel frustrated by what can only be described as 'One of the worst decisions for an RPG'.

So, let me get this straight. Saving Tieflings, The Inn from act 2, doing companion quests and sidequests don't really matter? Same with using tadpoles.

What I mean by that is this: all the choices you make, good and bad alike, have got absolutely no consquence on the ending, because it doesn't exist. Well, not exactly, there are some endings you can go for, I think there are 4, I haven't finished act 3, but that's not really that important right now. According to dataminers there is a file indicating endings with Withers and companions (what happens to them 6 months later), etc, but as of right now (19.08.2023), it's not in the game.

So, you choose one of the endings and roll credits. Do you know what this reminds me of? Deus Ex Human Revolution, 4 choices at the end, with previous actions being completely pointless.

To put a comparison, Obsidian made Fallout New Vegas in 18 months. They created one of the best Fallout games in the history and made sure your actions mattered. What happened to your companions, to places you helped/hindered, to factions, to your main character. After finishing the game, you could see the results of your own actions in the nearest future in a form of a slideshow, told by the narrator. You can't do that in BG3.

This is simply a slap in the face for anyone invested in the game. It's like watching a movie, seeing final action happen and then fade to black. Like a bond movie, where Villain is defeated and credits are rolled. As for love interest, companions, some kind of closure, it's not shown to the viewers, which would probably spark an outrage in real life.

And I genuinely hope something is done about that, because this really reminds me of a failure known as 'Fallout 3'. "OVER 200 ENDINGS!" No, there weren't that many. In fact, there were basically 2 endings. The rest was a random variation of slides that didn't really matter.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Act 1 a ton (although, I don't understand why was Raphael changed to appear at random spots, why were fishermen rescuing a mind flayer cut and many other things). Act 2 was great too, though act 1 was better overall. Act 3 is when everything just turned into a mess.

To ilustrate how annoyed I am at finding out that the game is still unfinished and I will probably have to wait for Definitive Edition is me making an account and this very post.

Larian, you can do better than this and I hope you will take into account what me and other players are telling you.

#JusticeForKarlach

#GiveProperEndings

Yeah 100% in waiting for some big patches to play again very unhappy with the end, ending has the same feel as one of those series episodes where everyone wakes up at the end and all actions where pointless

Just finished Act 2 and camp just outside and in the sight of the City of Baldurs Gate…

When i have to read here and elsewhere all the unpleasent stuff about the “Incompleteness” of Act 3 and especially the Endings, i would like to stop progressing my journey at this point and wait til (hopefully) things got fixed,,,

Just finished my first play through, and had a quick look on Reddit for ending discussion. Lots of people saying the same thing, but I don’t really get it.

My choices mattered. I saved the tieflings, rescued most of prisoners from the iron throne, nudged shadowheart away from her cult, etc. i know I did these things, and I really don’t need the game to tell me what I did at the end.

Fallout New Vegas’ ending sliders were largely a bit of a sting in the tail to tell you that what you thought was the right thing didn’t necessarily turn out perfectly, which suits the theme and atmosphere of the game. But what it doesn’t do is react to the choices in the game very well. So the equivalent would be a bit of narration to tell you the tieflings left for Buldurs Gate, but they were amubushed on the way, some died, some were caputured, etc. As opposed to running into them again and possibly helping them again.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more resolution for more of the characters, but the idea that nothing mattered because the game doesn’t state that it mattered just sees weird to me.

What was jarring for me is the lack of a splash when the brain hit the water, (if you went that route). Not usually one to complain about graphics and effects, but that just looked wrong. After the enormous effort that obviously went into cut scenes, the final climatic moment looked a bit silly. But that’s probably for another topic.

I enjoyed act 3 more than 2. There’s a lot of stuff to do in the city, including resolving companion stories which can go multiple ways depending on what you’ve done so far, more majors choices, some new side quest stuff, recurring characters, etc. Obviously the main plot moves forward and starts to feel more urgent, which happens in almost all RPGs where the most freedom to just dick around tends to be at the beginning, but you can put that off to just explore and see what’s going on.

The dataminers have found an ending, a six months later proglogue but for whatever reason it didnt make it into the game. Hopefully it was buggy and they banked on being able to fix it between release and people finishing? but idk
it was on reddit

I disagree. Sure, your actions have got immediate consequences for later acts, like saving tieflings, etc. This is a good thing, it means the game is reactive to your choices.

However, you are comparing apples and oranges. Doing all the quests, sidequests, companion quests and never learning if your choices actually did anything long term is wrong for an rpg.

If I romance shadowheart as a good dark urge, I want to know if they are living together at the farm, stayed together or maybe not, based on the choices I have made.

This isnt even a matter of slideshow, but a proper epilogue for all the companions and the world itself. Be it interactive cutscene, slideshow or something else. I can make my own headcannon, sure, but the game just ending without proper goodbye is not a good thing no matter how you slice it.

I've finished the game - 285 hrs since launch - I was quite happy with the ending I got, it definitely wasn't incomplete. All those people you're saving, they're accumiliated in a quest in Act 3 called Gather Your Allies. They matter.

First off, I re-read your first post and noticed that you haven’t actually got there yet. So either you’re complaining about something you haven’t actually experienced, or you’ve spoiled the ending(s) for yourself far more than Larian has. Hopefully the former.

So you don’t like me comparing how faction stories were resolved with FNV, how about companions? Not one companion in that game had a single word to say to me about what we did, or what’s next for them, let alone allow me to try to change their minds. It goes straight from a chat with the colonel, the robot or the dude in the silly mask to a couple of sentences telling me they parted ways and were miserable. Now I loved that game, but I wouldn’t say it handled ending better, just differently. It was an artistic choice to end that way, not a requirement.

You also mention the “outrage” if films ended like this, but most do. Very few have Return of the King style drawn out epilogues. And a quick bit of narration or text is generally reserved for historical stories, because there were real life events that happened after the story finished. In most other cases, the story ends and what happens after is not explained because it doesn’t need to be. Sometimes the end is ambiguous, sometimes it’s a cliffhanger, and they can work too.

My main point though, is all the people saying that choices don’t matter if the game doesn’t explicitly tell me that they matter. I helped the tieflings at the grove, I helped them again at the inn, I helped some of them yet again in the city and I checked on others to see how they were doing. That mattered to me in my playthrough and I don’t need Ron Perlman to tell me that it mattered.

Then let's agree to disagree. I was going to finish the game, but act 3 kept stuttering and bugging on me. So, I dropped it. As for the endings, I don't know how the game ends, but I read on the internet that the game just ends. There is no epilogue, no summary of what happened next, just rolling the credits.

You may not care about Ron Perlman telling what your actions did, but I and probably a few other people care. How you play the game is up to you, saving npcs, making choices is all part of the game. Them mattering is a core of RPG, without choice and consequence, the game wouldn’t be an RPG.

Your actions matter, I am not arguing that. But having the game end, often leaving many loose ends behind without an explanation is not ideal. Whether you are striving for Happy Ever After or not, the game should at least have something. Like meeting your companions one last time at the tawern and talking to them. There is nothing like this.

You don't care about that? Be my guest. I do though, which is why I made this post in the first place.

I would stop letting what you read on the internet stop you from doing something. The game has an ending, it's very obvious, but the companion endings are not great (imo). That said, if you were already frustrated with the game, then the ending section won't make you enjoy it, it's a bit of a slog if I'm being honest.

Good to know. It seems I will wait for definitive edition instead. Between all the cut content and bugs, I will be putting BG3 on the backburner. Oh well, still a good game, but it probably needed another year of work based on acts 2 and 3.