I've skipped the spoilery parts but the statement in the last paragraph "bigger is not always better" fits what I have been feeling about the story setup while still not having finished the game. The old games stories were personal stories. There was some larger-scale impact but they were, in the end, more about your character than anything else. If this story is really about what is been hinted at (which I don't know yet), then the stakes are just too high for a personal story, even more so one encapsulated by one game. It has been a persistent flaw of Larian's games that everything appears to be at stake all the time, and the endings of several of their games I've played feel like they turn your characters more into ciphers bringing large-scale events to pass than people concerned with their role in the world.
I wonder if at the end, I'll be able to ride off into the sunset and leave the world to its own devices. I will not necessarily want to do that, but I'd like to have that choice without the world crumbling do dust because I made it. Because the stories told by these games are compelling to me insofar as they are personal stories about the characters I envision to live in those fictional worlds, not by becoming integral aspects of the worlds' fates.
