Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General So... what is Sven's big upcoming surprise ?

Agreed, it’s something bigger. If we’re betting - my money would go on something to do with Bhaal. Or bhaalspawn. Or re-visiting major location from previous games.

Hmm, maybe Cespenar? lol 😂

Id be stoked for a reimagined revisit to Durlag’s Tower. THAT would be cool.

Durlag's tower was neat, but the problem with it was that half the content in Throne of Bhaal ended up in essentially a side dungeon irrelevant to the main plot, and the final leg of the Bhaalspawn Saga really came out the worse for it IMO. I wouldn't want Larian to fall into a similar trap.

This would not be so far-fetched, after all, the Illithids managed to infiltrate Durlag's tower in the past. Maybe this time they have it completely under control and turned it into another outpost similar to Moonrise Towers? The Elder Brain surely still knows the secret passages and entrances as well as the positions of the traps that have been disarmed in the meantime. Even Ketheric could have simply sent his peep-eye with his undead servants through the corridors to track down the remaining traps.

If we can't visit Durlag's Tower, then maybe one of the other places like Gullykin or Beregost. I'd also like to beat the crap out of Xvarts and Tasloi again.


Could it be that you have confused Durlags Tower with Watcher's Keep?

But I think I know what you mean. On your adventure journey in BG 1, you could easily detour to a ruin that you thought was just another ruin. In BG 2 with Watcher's Keep, of course, it was very different, since you now knew you were a child of Bhaal, either hunting for Irenicus and Bodhi or the other Bhaalspawn, and for the most part not out in the wilderness stumbling upon yet another ruin. Here I would have liked to see a small leading event, such as meeting a traveling merchant, that would have pointed it out to us.

You are thinking of Watcher’s Keep, not Durlag’s Tower.

Drizzt as an Origin character?

I very much approve of this line of thinking. If it’s accurate, then we don’t need to find the actual conversation to narrow the options quite a bit.

Anything on the forefront of the fanbase’s mind must have had to do with either DOS:2 or BG2. I’m guessing the conversation was half “will you fix this issue that DOS:2 had?” and half “will it be like BG2 in this cool way?”.

Among issues with DoS2, not many could be a significant surprise. I swear, if Swen had a good inventory in his back pocket this whole time… But, you know, a day/night cycle could fit the bill. Prophecies aside, it could be any cool piece of tech they got working early on in development that solved a key issue they had in their engine.

Among cool stuff in BG2, real time with pause comes to mind. Or it could be some version of story/lore/character continuity between BG2 and its “sequel”. Or, my final guess, some version of random encounters/camp encounters. That could be the result of some cool tech, and fits the bill for something that the players have been asking for since the very beggining.

My guess is that the first announcement mainly rekindled fond memories people have of the previous Baldur's Gate games. So that would mean that among the first responders thoughts like 'will the next game have feature X that I liked so much in BG1 or/and BG2?' would have been prevalent.
The Boo/Minsc beans have already been spilled. And Drizzt can't return because I killed him for his sabres, that was years ago. What else could it be?

Day and Night cycle.
But I don't have too much expectations because I'm usually not really in line with Swen about "cool" things.

What about an elaborate crafting system or Artificier class or both? I would love it.

Since Larian are so giddy about it, it's likely systems-related. Clever systems are more important than world building or storytelling, after all.

A "Divinity mode" that erases the remains of D&D rules from the game and replaces them with fun mechanics, more slapstick and an increased Shove distance. Panel from Hell: "We wanted to give players the best possible D&D game".

I'd put my money on a DM client though. It would be a major feature and doesn't DOS already have that?

I hope it's a "Core Rules Mode" that plays like actual D&D.

I agree with folk who think this must be plot, and probably end game, related. I just can’t see why something that wasn’t intended as a plot twist or surprise story reveal would need to be kept secret for years, and why players would only find out about it after the release, if that part of the quote mentioned by the OP is an accurate representation of what Swen said.

As to what it might be, there seem to be so many possibilities. It does seem reasonable that it’s something tied to earlier games and/or the wider FR setting given apparently folk were talking about it from the start. Possibly something to do with why we’re suddenly seeing a nautiloid when apparently they were meant to be long gone or at least vanishingly rare?

I don't think it has to be plot-related.

There is still a lot that we don't know about in terms of game features/mechanics. This includes both specific rules-related features (Subclasses and Races that will be in the game, spells that will or will not be in the game, Ready and Dodge actions, etc) and more general video-gamey features (max level, number of companions, Day/Night cycles or not, how difficulty modes will be handled, etc). Yet Larian has had the game more or less feature-complete since Patch 7 (if I remember correctly), with each feature being in progress toward "done".

In short, Larian has been extremely stingy with information related to game features/mechanics. It seems as if they like the idea of surprising players with the game features that will be in the game (I think that if you want prospective players to (pre-)purchase your game, you should be transparent about what will or won't be in it, in terms of specs/features/etc, but that doesn't seem to be their stance).

As a result, I wouldn't be too surprised if Swen's "big secret" turns out to be a feature/mechanics, rather than a plot point.


As for the exact things Swen said, that the original poster referred to, I think it comes from this interview.

Cheers for sharing that. I notice the interview doesn’t actually say that the secret won’t be revealed until full release, only that it’s about the full release and hasn’t been revealed yet. That does potentially change things, and mean that it could be something that’s not necessarily a spoiler, like a mechanic.

And in that case, I have no idea what it might be!

I' m starting to fear that the big surprise is that there will be not much left of Baldur's Gate once we arrive there:😅
The Cult tries to get their hands on runepowder, the Ironhand Gnomes already have some of it (and plan to use it), and everybody is heading towards Baldur's Gate.
Including Shadowheart and the mysterious artefact, of which I hope it is not the D20 of doom.
(And I hope nobody notices Gale's condition and tries to use him as a living bomb)

Just kidding, I think that, most likely, we can prevent that parts of the swordcoast are going to be destroid (if the information we get about the destructiveness of runepowder is correct, and it is really that devastating).

Cool, just like that Mass Effect trailer, who do you choose to save. I don't know if that would cause the kind of day 1 fervor that Swen seems to be implying but I think all the doomsday weapons we've encountered in the EA is bound to be a part of it.

We've already speculated that we wouldn't be getting a proper Baldur's Gate experience, with the city being under siege or something else equally stultifying, but the Minsc teaser trailer had some nice shots of the city which was encouraging. At least we'll be involved in it's destruction...fingers crossed.

I don't really think this is the thing Swen was talking about, but I'm currently at Grymforge and couldn't help but notice that there is an awful lot of explosives in this game 😄

I'll keep my fingers crossed we get to visit an undestroyed Baldur's Gate; from what I saw in the trailer, the city looks beautiful.
And my character had been invited to quite a few pints in Baldur's Gates famous taverns.

Maybe we'll be on a ship with our companions and it gets attacked! And then we have to choose who to sav..wait a minute..

Abdel is the Absolute. Hehehe.

If there will be a person behind the Absolute ...
And if this person wont use our dreampartner model ...

I think Sven should be the Absolute.