Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why did Larian promote cut content?

It is such a shame that Larian failed so hard.

I think failed is a bit harsh. What we do have is excellent when it works. They came up short in certain aspects of a vision.

No, I think failed is aporipriate considering that those cuts were made very shortly before release and in some cases likely not promoted by outside factors but likely because Larian wanted people to use the tadpole system for more powers and also otherwise not "burden" the player with bad consequences.

And if I remember right Sven still pretended there are consequences for tadpole use after they changed them to a powerup system and they knew there were none.

Lol i wouldn’t know… I never used the tadpole or the powers.

Judging by my steam time, I spent no more than 18 hours in Act 2, and no more than 57 hours in Act 1. A lot of that time was spent reloading to see different outcomes and returning to areas I had already been to see if I missed something.

I did everything on the "Act 2 Checklist" on the subreddit, including things that were not listed on the Act 2 Checklist like the "Cursed Fishing Shack" (being vague on purpose). I'm not going to list other things that I did that were not on the checklist because of spoilers. All told, 3 of those 18 hours I probably spent backtracking and checking for secrets. I concur with someone else in the thread who said that Act 2 is realistically 15 hours of content. It is underwhelming because Act 1 is more than 3 times its size in choices and character development and exploration and diverse locations.

To clarify any confusion in the thread, the game defines Act 2 as solely the Shadow-Cursed Lands.

EDIT: Independent of the time I spent on each act with my backtracking and reloading, if I were to guess how much content there is if a perfectly efficient player were doing a quick 100% run of each Act, I'd say Act 1 is 30-40 hours of solid and highly reactive content, while Act 2 is 10-15 of swiss cheese content that is barely reactive, except for 2-3 events.

Fascinating thread. Someone seems to be going through the files and has apparently found a whole folder of what appears to be unimplemented ending stuff: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1toM2E_7-cpiCvpvXQMjKt_Brh2ChhL2o

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15umpxk/to_those_disappointed_in_the_endings/

Cut, bugged, or what?

Larian really released this game with an unfinished ending huh? disappointing. Guess they really wanted it out before starfield. Larian when are you going to learn to make a solid final act?

Well to avoid spoilers I will talk in the most generic way possible.
In my humble opinion the game should had been split in 4 acts, act 3 feels there is tons of stories going on at the same time and some of them are not concluded properly. Stuff that should had more time in the spotlight to do proper justice and be presented in this final act. While could use the extra act to unload the load and let people have time to enjoy Baldurs Gate city.

Its an excellent game but you notice the quality drop in ACT 3 and the ending.

My theory is during the 3 years of early access, Larian was just busy adding things instead of play testing and have everything makes sense. I think they realized towards the end that they might have added more things than they could handle. Act 1 is near perfect because it's the start and transitioning all those choices to the final acts is probably a cluster of work. This game is going to take a long time to make perfect, Im seeing Cyberpunk 2077 here. I played Cyberpunk in 2023 and the game was fantastic so this is what I am seeing here.

The fact that we were able to play early access for more that 3 years and datamine all of it is an anomaly in the video game world. The truth is that we usually don't get to see how a game is evolving during development. Games usually change a lot behind the scene, a lot of content is often left behind. So I wouldn't blame Larian for not including things they didn't formally announced. However the most important part is that the end product is coherent in its presentation, and it seems that BG3 is suffering from these phantom pains. From what I heard from some sources, development is a bit of a chaotic process at Larian and new features are added to the to-do list without warning. I guess the ambitions outgrew the scope so much that they had to scramble to wrap up the game, especially with pressure from both covid and Starfield. At least they are planning multiple big patches, so they are aware that some parts of the game could use some work.

Well, if 2 months before the release we are told about the City and the novels, about the fact that the 2nd act is the biggest, it is strange to turn a blind eye to this. The game has enough problems without cut data

For those of you defending Larian's apparent decision to release early ahead of Starfield while cutting swaths of BG3 Act 3 and most of the endings, it's that sort of acquiescence that gets us incomplete games.

We'll never know what a BG3 delayed until the Christmas holidays would have looked like.

If you put hundreds of hours into experiencing a story it's reasonable to expect narrative consistency and closure in the second half.

I don't understand people who are against adding content that makes the story better. And yes, if you do not talk about mistakes, no one will correct them

This reddit thread is full of comments along the same lines as the negative steam reviews:

"The ending and act 3 in general was massively disappointing"

"Glad to have read this. just finished and super disappointed"

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...se_disappointed_in_the_endings/?sort=new

...

I suppose that's all we can really do when we dump hours into something we're emotionally attached to only to feel empty in the end. Seek support groups, commiserate.

Your hub idea is a really good shout, I wish the game had spent more time in that area. As it stands, we spend more time in the sewers than we do actually in the city it's self, due to the lack of things to actually do there.

My review so far for BG3 is a 5/10. You will be able to watch it in a few days after I finished processing it on YouTube it's 1.4 hours long. The cut content is one of the reasons I heavily cut score points from bg3. As I score on points, out of 13. The glitches, piss poor Vulcan support, the constant file repairs, incomplete origins for 4 of the origins. Lack of reactivity for backgrounds.

Still enjoyed Divinitys Gate 3. Did not enjoy bg3

@AusarViled your rating sounds similar to how I would rate it, I'd be more generous maybe 6/10 or 7/10 because fixing Act 3 and the endings will make it a timeless classic.

Meanwhile IGN gives it 10/10 and PC Gamer 97/100. O.o

If BG3 is a 5/10, then most of modern gaming is a 0/10, maybe even dipping into the negatives.