And yet we can also fast travel without portals using the same UI, but this method lacks an in-game explanation.
This part tho i cant agree with ...
True, we didnt get any explanation ... but part of that very fact is that we dont know if this kind of fast travel is happening "
without portals" ...
Personaly i believe the contrary is true, since we still came out of portal every time we Fast Travel ...
Therefore my personal (and i can be wrong ofc.) explanation (and yes it is headcanon) is that Larian simply didnt see any reason to force us to manualy walk to nearest portal through usualy dead space, where everything is allready done ... and so they implemented QoL change, and snip that part out.
I welcome such approach ...
And even tho it can make odd situation *inside* the Goblin camp, under certain circumstances ... i have hard time thinking about at least one more such scenario. O_o
So even IF (and that is big personal if) ... i would also see this as a problem, it would still be minor one in my eyes, since you confront it once only. :-/
This apparent uncertainty of how we fast travel without portals, when we're originally shown that fast travel relies on it, can lead to a loss of immersion.
Interesting ...