Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Balder's Gate 3 - Ending cutscenes (we all feel the same about this)

Really hoping they add that in, the game desperately needs it.

+1

Looking past the inconsistency in terms of which cut-scenes you received, small narrative things and the broken choice tracker/flags the game really needs some kind of closure. To a minor degree it's a matter of world state (each area you passed through) but especially a proper send-off for your companions and some other people whose lives you influenced to a great deal.

I'll definitely try to keep a pre-epilogue save so that I can fire it up at a later date if Larian re-visits this.

The game already acknowledged most of the choices I made. I know what the tieflings are up to, because I met them again and talked to them about it. I know how grove is doing under new management because Halsin kept me updated, same with Thaniel and Oliver (I already saw the curse being lifted). I’ve met the ironhand gnomes again and got involved with their rivalry.

Slideshow endings are an easy way to tell you such things if the game has a more static world and you don’t see the consequences in the game itself. In this case, it would just be telling me what I already know, unless they added unintended consequences which would detract from the happy ending feel.

Likewise I know what my companions are planning next. I can try to convince some to change their mind. That wasn’t fantastic for all of them (Astarion could have done with a bit of respect), but it was mostly OK.

As far as I'm concerned Astarion's ending Is either Bad or Worse. There is no relatively "happy" or at least neutral ending for their relationship. I don't romance other companions so I do not know how their relationship ends. But for Astarion and Tav it isn't optimal for my taste. And I'm clearly not alone, Reddit full of people complaining about unsatisfying ending you get with him.

I re-rolled the ending about six times, and I never got an ending for Astarion. I completed his quest, with the option that should make for an interesting ending but because of the no-epilogue, no-slides, just RNG chance to get dialogue from some but not all of your companions, no idea what happened. I don't even know if the tadpol dying means hes back to being a control by nature vampire? who knows, I don't. I guess he's happy he made a joke about something Minthara said on the dock in one of the ending discussions but otherwise he didn't exist.

I'm so glad I'm not alone in this. The endings are abrupt and unfulfilling. I wish to know what happens to everyone we helped or doomed along the way: to Arabella, to Zevlor, to Moonmaiden, to Mayrina and Ethel, to this baffon Volothamp, even, and also to each and every potential companion we even barely spoke with! I wish to know what happens to the Druid Grove and Goblin Camp, to Shadow Cursed Lands and to the Sharrans in the temple, to the Githyanki people, for Orpheus sake! To the House of Hope! Jesus, the House of Hope!!

I wish to talk to the companions right after the final battle, by CLICKING on them, not by being forced into the dialogue! And I want to discuss plans for the future, to toast, to celebrate. I've invested so much time and energy into beating this game, and to see it has no closure... it's bad. It feels like an insult, like a pie with a lot of promise but little to no filling. I played to know what happens to them all. And for all the hours I played I got nothing. The city's saved, okay. A care not about the city, I'm not attached to it. I care about the characters and fractions. It's as if the ending of DA:O was talking about flippin' Denerim we saved instead if all the characters we've met. It would be a lesser game, a forgettable one. I always feel like returning to Dragon Age. I feel nothing even remotely similar towards BG3 because of it's rushed and overhyped endings.


If you build up tension, you have to release it at the end and give closure. There is a ton of tension and no closure in sight.

It's a little puzzling to me how people defend the endings when Larian is known to create unsatisfying endings on the first go, they literally re-wrote large sections of Act 4 and the epilogue in D:OS2, and we have a nearly identical situation here, so it stands to reason that they will likely do what they did for their previous game, which means that the consensus is likely that what we currently have is grossly inadequate.

Just opinions. I agree with some of the criticism, disagree with other parts. Whatever happened with DOS2 is irrelevant, except for the fact that they did go back to make changes. So if we are hoping for the same, what specific changes should they make?

I imagine we will get either expanded endings or at least more of a proper epilogue in due time.

That said, I do appreciate some of the variables at work in the current version of the game. It's just not polished enough.

I found a stream where Swen clearly saying that in game is EPILOGUES WHERE IS ALL YOU CHOICES and it is for at least 15 minutes long.

Who want to hear it start from 41:00


And in this stream You can hear, that Larian some stuff have cut off to release it later by patches.

Start from 53:00

In another thread someone pointed out how good Act 1's ending is, for giving you the freedom to go around your camp party and talk to your companions, and key characters from your resolution of the act 1 plot, about how they feel and what they think about what's happening.

And now I just can't stop asking, WHY WASNT THE END OF THE GAME LIKE THAT?
It'd solve everything, the weird randomness of what characters you get to hear from, having to reroll, the lack of resolution for 90% of story threads. Everything. If you just went to a party in BG somewhere after the docks, all your friends and important plot characters were there and you could walk around and chat with them at will, then end the game and go to credits by telling withers or something, yeah, I think I'm done for the night. or etc?

Act 1 in it's ending celebration provides the perfect blueprint for how Act 3 should end. Even down to it's two radically different skins.

Yeah, inexplicable really. After having seen how Act 1 ended, I was 100% sure that the ending to Act 3 would be massive. I just can't comprehend why Larian thought it was a good idea to wrap up the game so quickly.

Like, was the dev team sitting down in the conference room, discussing how the game should end and someone said: "I think we should keep the epilogue as brief as possible. Some characters say a one-liner and then cut to credits" and everybody agreed?

I don't know much about game design, but even I can tell you that the most important thing to the ending of a story where you built relationships with many characters over more than 100 hours is that players are allowed to savour their ending a bit. Make the ending as long and as in depth as possible.

It's like if at the end of the Lord of the Rings Movies, after Frodo and Sam get rescued by the Eagles, the movie just ends. It's absolutely vital that the viewer gets to see all the characters again and that some side stories get resolved.

Replaying through and hitting the end of act 1, I have to return to just go. This is how the game should end! They set a standard for, this how the game does act/plot resolutions
and then it just doesn't happen ever again and the end of the game as literally nothing

Act3 needs to end with an Act 1 style ending party!

In the introductory sequence, was the Emperor actually the mindflayer we encounter on the beach? The attire he wears seems reminiscent of the Emperor's. I wonder if the developers initially had distinct roles for Daisy and the Emperor but later chose to amalgamate their stories. Personally, I would have appreciated a dynamic where Daisy exists as the tadpole in our brain, while the Emperor joins as a potential companion,

Something I am rly surprised about is that I don't see more people pointing out how bad the scene in the watch tower or whatever it was is.
The one where you have your speech and all your allies gather, it was the most awkward thing ever and felt so unpolished and rushed.
I was so baffled by it and just sat there in disbelief, it just really made me realize how far the polish had fallen compared to act 1.
Zevlors speech in act 1 is kinda cheesy but at least it felt like a functioning scene, the watch tower scene in act 3 felt like they had panicked because the game release was coming up and they just threw something together.
The allies you could summon were also bugged for me and became hostile when summoned which made it feel even more ridiculous, the whole conversation also felt weird like the guy just suddenly had to be told that '' actually she's the hero of Baldurs Gate '' lol.
It felt like there was a lot missing inbetween, like how would they even know what I had been up to at all I just break some politician out of jail ( and saved her in act 1 I guess ) and suddenly she's my biggest fangirl putting all of her trust in me when the suddenly seemingly out of nowhere apocalypse is happening.

That's not even getting into how buggy it was and how when at least for me when I exited and entered the room again the scene replayed which happened twice for me so I got the scene three times in total ( once more because I went up the tower to loot then back down again and it played, and another time because I exited the room and went back in again to check for loot because I forgot ).
There's other stuff that felt really weird too like how they just throw so much at you like the goblins, giants and the beholder felt so random to me.
I know they were under the brains control but were they just already loaded up and aboard the ships or something?
I guess because there were invasion plans so maybe it's just me being a bit petty I can acknowledge that.
But it felt odd and like the game was just trying to find enemies to throw at me that didn't feel like they fit thematically.

Well in my thread I simply stated that act 3 isnt done, it is still EA.

And the tower speech certainly falls in that category. Parts of act 3 are quite honestly ridiculous, with bugs and all. For the scene you mentioned Shadowheart is in my party, yet when the fist guy starts talking she is standing next to him. And.. then my party opens the doors and walks in??? Just wow. Inexcusable after 3 years in early access.

I feel like after we contributed to early access for 3 years. We are owed a finished game so they better get to work. The game can still be a masterpiece but work needs to be done.

First of all, I want to thank the team for everything they have done and for what they continue to do.
I understand that writing a final speech, making a beautiful staged scene is quite difficult. But for such a great game, the scene of communication with supporters turned out to be terrible.I immediately remember the third mass effect or pathfinder, where we turn directly to the party members with whom we went through the whole game, where we can discuss our path with everyone, say goodbye or express our love, because after the final battle everything will change.
This is sorely lacking.

Yeah the animations can be really janky too in cutscenes, I really felt like it got way jankier in the last sections of act 3.

Even act 1 still has a lot of jank.
Today for instance I was talking to Minthara about the Grove and managed to intimidate her into '' you don't get to tell me what to do '' and she dropped it.
Then I speak to her again because I am doing evil playthrough and want to kill the Grove, I just didn't want to be a pushover about it.
And she just restarts the same conversation as the first one where she starts reading my mind and the same dialogue options like nothing happened lol.
There's a fair bit of '' jump cuts '' in the animations during dialogue sometimes too.

I definitely do feel like being a bit extra critical towards Larian due to the hype and praise they're getting, with that I think higher expectations is kinda justified.
It feels like there's a bit too much of them touting their own horn and people uncritically following suit.
Like okay they're not doing mtx, good for them and us too I guess.
But I still think they released the game in a bit of an unacceptable state which according to all the hype they're supposed to be above and people are a bit too keen on shrugging it off and making excuses for it.

Edit: Oh yeah on the Minthara example too, another one was the Tyr and Karlach thing Lae'zel and my character was commenting on '' are we really going to hunt a devil for them? '', after I had already killed her and given them her head rofl ( and also killed them afterwards, so everyone involved was dead ).
Even in the act 1 early access playtested content there's so much of this I am running into the facade of polish really wears off.