Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Panel From Hell/Creator Day Impressions

It looks as though the companions might be getting a slightly cooler animated entrance, apart from poor Shadowheart who is stuck in her pod. And I didn't manage to go find Astarion in my playthrough, just made all haste for the grove, and certainly didn't get as far as where I assume Karlach still might be. But you saw a bit of Gale's if you watched PFH (though his entrance did not end well there, my halfling kindly yanked him out of the portal ).

Wyll also gets a bit more animation at the gates, making his entrance cooler and more dramatic. Though unfortunately he was casting Arms of Hadar all over the place in my run, so doesn't look like there's been a change to that scene to help him keep his warlock status under wraps for a little while which is a pity.

But once I got into the grove and met Wyll, I had no idea that he'd changed so was most surprised to hear him, instead of talking about going to kill goblins, talk about needing to hunt down someone called Karlach instead. I'll admit I didn't take careful note of exactly what he said as I assumed I'd not be talking about that in any detail because spoiler and because I'd started off whizzing through the conversation wrongly thinking I knew what was happening until I was brought up short, so I'm not going to potentially sow misinformation by going into any more detail than I can accurately remember.

However, I will say I did somehow get a different, and more compelling vibe from this Wyll. Part of it, I think, is because in the EA build I thought he was very poorly animated: oddly jerky and pulling strange, rictus-like expressions. That was gone and he felt much more natural to me and, without the distraction of the dodgy animations, the VA's performance was finally given the opportunity to start to shine. While it's a lot of weight to put on one single conversation, I also felt that the new Wyll was coming across as more mature and genuinely confident (as opposed to fake confident, though of course he may just have got better at faking), and the tone was somehow just a little darker, though not in a way that I can put my finger on or that made him come across as a bad person.

Some of you may recall that Wyll was the companion I'd been least convinced by in EA. I confess I'm now intrigued. Partly just because I want to see how his story, and Karlach's, has changed. But partly just because he grabbed me as a character more. And because I'm now really keen to have him and Karlach (who I found surprisingly adorable) in a party together and see how they can, as was mentioned at the PFH, overcome what looks like it's going to be a difficult beginning and become fast friends.

That's of course my own totally subjective opinion, and you might well disagree. We'll see in a few weeks

In the build I played, the room with the imps in right after meeting Lae'zel was different, and there was some icky membrane stuff I could climb up directly to outside the room where Shadowheart was trapped without going out onto the nautiloid deck at all. I am assuming that it would still have been possible to go the long way around and the deck was still there, but I didn't verify that.