I posted it on Reddit, but I'll post it here too. I just don't feel like in anyway the ending I got was *MY* ending.
So I beat the game a few days ago, I legitimately had one of the most fun gaming experiences of my life playing this game. First run, Tactician mode, evil playthrough as normal Tav. What's been bothering me so bad though about the end, is I don't feel like the ending I got or any of the possible 2(?) Endings I could pick were right for my character and the story that lead up to the final battle.
I keep seeing a lot of people say "Well the journey was the ending, so deal with it." But the problem was, my crew had some very specific goals, none of which were acknowledged by any of the two possible endings I could pick.
First we had Astarion, the new Ascended Vampire, whom I was encouraging to do horrible things and seize power with his newfound vile gifts. We talked about how we had each others back and he would take over Baldur's Gate and make it his new Capital of the Damned or something.
Secondly, we had Gale, whom I promised the Crown of Karsus to, and I told him I would assist him in controlling the Netherese Weave so he could become a god of magic and we could control the world together.
Then Lae'zel who was actually the only one who got an appropriate ending, the Githyanki Liberation ending. I have zero complaints with her flying off into the sunset on her dragon with her new bros.(Though I guess they just forgot about Voss)
The Ending. I have 2 Choices. Astarion Prompts me to kill Orpheus as he is controlling the brain- at which point Astarion IMMEDIATELY calls me a crazy person for killing Orpheus. Ok? My only option forward from that is to Mindcontrol my companions and sit in a brain chair. Cut to black.
Option 2. Kill the brain- The Brain dies. Gale tells me "Whelp the Crown is in the river somewhere, I'll go find it, see ya." and leaves. Bye forever Gale! Then Astarion just kinda says "Well that was fun!" and that's it. I tried 4 different times, that's no bug, no Ascended Vampire ending. That's the ending. The game proceeds to zoom out and give me a monologue about being the Hero of Baldur's Gate and how I saved all the city folk and how good of a person I am despite plotting to kill all of these people and take over the world for the entire game.
This was not *MY* ending. Nothing in the 120 hours I played or any of the hundreds of conversations I had or thousands of dialogue choices I meticulously picked lead up to this outcome. It felt like the DM got tired, grabbed all his papers and DM screen and winged the ending of his campaign with one foot out the door because I didn't do what he wanted me to or something.
This isn't a rallying cry for something like release the Snyder cut of BG3, this is just me saying, I don't understand what the point of all of those decisions were if they all came down to "Be The Hero Everyone Loves" or "Be The Bad Guy Who Sits In A Chair"
I don't know if it was from Larian or some Game Journo just exaggerated it, but I saw some hogwash about 170,000 possible endings. And while I knew that wasn't going to be the case, I REALLY REALLY did not expect it all to boil down to just two choices.
