Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [END SPOILS WARNING] Addressing Karlach (PLEASE PUT SPOILERS IN TAGS)

Though we won't

I saw too many people that shut up, accept and praise the "new" ending. Be honest, i dont think we can win until Karlach`s Soldiers found a way to shout loud enough again, maybe even louder than before. They (Larian) must see that this "new ending" not satisfied us.

All the major gaming news outlets praised the patch and how Karlach's gotten love. I don't think Larian will do anything anymore, they got their good press coverage just before PS5 release, and will make good sales. The ending they released is what they think Karlach deserves. There's nothing more to be done.

As for me, I've already given up playing. I cannot finish the game knowing what will happen. But I'm just one person, one sale. Larian will make so much money with this game that they have no incentive to care anymore. It's just business.

This is how I feel. It's just not worth it. Not just the shouting and screaming and pestering Larian but....even playing the game and giving Larian any more support. I've been lied to. And when I've been lied to I don't forgive easily

Most people I've seen who "accept" this new "ending" still emphasise they want a happy ending. Of course there's no guarantees that Larian will add it, they've got their hands full now with Patch 2 breaking more stuff that it aims to fix, but I dunno, I think we shouldn't stop trying to bring the justice. What we need to do though is to stop being to hard on ourselves, it's so exhausting. Like I caught myself not functioning properly for a few days straight already, monitoring forums, reddit and patch comments hoping to find a glimpse of hope.

I even made a YouTube video about it, again, to add my two cents and because I really do care.


Not trying to self-promote or anything, just wanted to share (let me know if it's not appropriate, I'll remove the link)

Not enough just wanna good ending, people need to speak about how they wanna it! And definitely don`t accept "new" ending on the public...
Never stop calling for justice! Never stop fighting till war is over!
My words surely have too much pathos in it, but its exactly what we need: Emotions and Noise. More = Better.
More post on social media, more videos, more meme, more comments, do all we can. Dont afraid, dont think, just do as much as we can!

D:OS 2 was acclaimed, and Larian still gives a major update a year later for free, even if the game was 93 Metacritic score on first release. And it becomes the best-selling cRPG game ever with 7.5 millions copies.
They're working on a major upgrade of their game engine, the game will probably be released on XBox considering the hype. They're plenty of reasons to think they'll continue working on BG3.

BUT. That's all in their hands. Or they choose the Peter Molyneux path, full of false promises, or they keep going on the CD Projekt post CP2077 release, with major improvement of their games related to gamer's feedback.

That's easy to make one good game and having the beginning of your game really good. But that's the deep base of player that makes your popularity. You cannot trick your deep base of players, espacially when you're Larian, that always go with crowdfunding and early access to develop their games.

Larian benefits from a huge fanbase of nostalgic players of old BG's/Neverwinter and a new generation of D&D players that wait for a decent new D&D videogame. That's why BG3 is so hyped. They can't allow themselves to just let it as is. Because if they just wait for the money to drop, their next game can be their last game.
See how CD Projekt was at the CP2077 release. They could have just wait & see. But they work hard, and now there's a new hype for the DLC, and for the new The Witcher project.
And now compare with Ubisoft that just over-use their licenses, how bad they're compared to their "golden era" after AC2.
Larian know BG3 is not finished, not polished. They are a little ashamed of the ending and it shows in their communication "we know not everything expected is here pls don't be mad we do our best" style. That was the same thing with No Man's Sky and CP2077.
Bruh I mean, only 5% of the players actually finish the game, 19% of the players just reach Baldur's Gate and only 36% have just finished the Act 1. Obviously a day or another people will start complaining about act 3.


We can only wait a year to see what they will do. If they do nothing, we are more than once to just never trust Larian anymore and wait huge sales to try their future games. Else, it will be a studio we can trust.
Considering their past, we can be confident. But with all these actual broken promises about the end of the game (I'm not only talking about Karlach, but also the Upper City, the 17K ends etc.), it's wiser not to over hype.

Definitely in the minority here, but I don't think that smoking is that out of character. It's a plausible bad habit to have for an ex street urchin bad girl "fighting through the streets" AND it's definitely a plausible bad habit to pick up in ten years of living in a very stressful environment without having access to healthier forms of relaxation like, uh, genuine friendship or sex (or days off). Actually the latter is more likely, considering the line "thought I quit these for good" only popping up now that she's back in that same environment. Not unreasonable to try and drop a bad habit when you think that you escaped and started a new life. And why would she talk about it before? Do you disclose all your former bad habits to your friends, especially if you quit before you met said friends? Unless they're like, puffing smoke in your face and make you want to relapse, that is.

Now, yes, it's clearly added in later for the sake of the campy cool factor, seeing as we don't ever see a cigar or hear it be mentioned as a concept in the whole entire game prior to that, but generally I disagree that it's OOC as is.

Even so, however, you know what would be GREAT? Being able to do something so that she DOESN'T have to go back to a stressful environment that makes her want to relapse a bad habit--

Decided to input a few cents into the proverbial Karlach coin slot. Unfortunately seems that most of the community has become increasingly irritable regarding the discussion. I see more than enough expressing general satiation with the "new" ending with the additive of agitation from non Karlach participants. Consensus has shifted, as if the abhorrently reprehensible idea of echoing a popular sentiment in an effort to take advantage of a game developers policy on adapting, changing or rebalancing a narrative wouldn't be recognized by their community.

Seriously, spend more than 10 minutes browsing reddit post Patch 2 and the entire support beam of your argument bridge starts looking more and more brittle by the nano second. I'd hate to black pill legions of hopefuls, but this patch seems to have taken the exact cobble layered path Larian may have hoped for. A brisk spritz of coolant to quell the chaotic inferno and choke out noxious fumes. Id suggest consistency, but it really does seem like theres more than a chance this threads issues will be filled under "resolved" and the general community, long term, detesting our existence, incapable of accepting their narratively divine epiphany.

Really, its disheartening but not apocalyptic. Ill continue to share the sentiments and pray for rain, even though its looking a little arid out there

Exactly this... It's almost painfully clear that Larian aren't trying to placate, they're just trying to avoid and stifle. I don't understand why... I don't understand what happened during development to have left this game so bereft of any, well... logic toward the end. Most statements about the cut content make no sense, neither from a narrative perspective, nor as a matter of consistency within their own promises. The backtracking is very loud, and to justify butchering an experience by eliminating a massive portion of the game, including many quests and elements which would've been significant - if not vital - pieces of a coherent whole, even eliminating this game's very ending as a matter of vision is troubling regardless of how one chooses to look at it.

To be perfectly honest, the waves upon waves of almost droning sympathisers are terrifying in a way. I simply cannot comprehend how anyone could ever look at this game, this story, and consider it complete. Not to mention the lingering technical shortcomings which just seem to shift from one patch to the other and are almost entirely overlooked by the majority of players - and I'm not talking about the hiccups, like the camera getting stuck on the scenery, or companions being stumped by a 7-foot ledge, I'm talking about major, oftentimes game breaking bugs which still remain... How could anyone possibly think this product is complete? And how could it be so fanatically showered with praise? How did we get here?

At the end of the day, however, the most painful aspect, for me, is the oh-so-obvious point of rupture within the game itself. The first Act is a masterpiece. The second Act is a jewel in need of some polish, but the third Act is a hodgepodge of dead ends and confusion. It feels as though they just gave up on finishing it. And it's heartbreaking that a story which builds itself up to be one of, if not the best in recent memory, shoots itself in every limb by the time it reaches its ending... There's always only one shot at a first impression, which, in this case, managed to ricochet all over the place... I'm saddened that we have been denied the fulfilment of that unique sense of wonder with which this game set out...

Wish it was easier to cut this particular loss.

Maybe I'm just an optimist, but I frankly don't share the doom and gloom attitude that a lot of us seem to have. I've been obsessively checking the subreddit for Karlach related news for the past 2 weeks (not much else to do before classes start), and I see just as many people if not more complaining that Karlach's ending should be improved to feature a good option than players who want to keep the tragedy.

I frankly would be surprised if Larian DIDN'T revamp Karlach's endings and quest in a patch or definitive edition, because I mean... why wouldn't they? Larian built its reputation on being open to feedback and listening to their community. When D:OS2 came out Beast (another late origin character addition) also had a similarly barebones quest and lackluster ending, but did they just leave him and move on? No! They listened to their community and rewrote his whole arc in the Definitive Edition.

Karlach is obviously a fan favorite, so much so that they patched in an ending improvement to her 28 days after launch. 28 days! I can't imagine any other major gaming company reacting that quick to community feedback. The point is the reason I came to the forums to complain about Karlach's ending in the first place was because I knew they'd listen, and obviously since this thread is 22 pages long I'm not alone. We just have to be patient, have hope, be respectful, and trust that they want the game to be just as good as we do.

I registered just to express my opinion. I really love Karlach. She's one of my favorite characters and I totally ditched my romance with Shadowheart the moment I met Karlach. I knew she was the one for me. To say I was extremely disappointed with the "completion" of her personal quest is an understatement. Karlach deserved better. Everyone else more or less had their troubles resolved with happy endings (though I would argue Astarion also got the short end of the stick) but Karlach's basically doomed no matter which option you pick.

I was really happy when Larian announced that the new patch would address concerns about the Karlach ending. However, from my perspective, they didn't really deliver on that promise. The new "good" ending is not what Karlach deserves and it is out of character for her. I think it's a viable ending for anyone that doesn't care to give her a happy ending, but for everyone else that really wants to be able to see her dreams and wishes come true, it's a massive letdown.

I really hope that Larian does more to address this in the future. I hope they have a more comprehensive and wholesome ending planned for an update down the road. If they don't, it will be a serious blemish on their otherwise incredible masterpiece.

I'm about ready to give up on BG3. Great gameplay but Teletubbies writing is Teletubbies writing, and nothing indicates they care one bit to improve upon it. And as much as I want to, I just can't make myself engage much with a railroad trip to Teletubbistan. As nice as the train is, I know where I'm going to end. And I know that I really don't want to be there.

I feel like stressing that I don't blame the writers. I'm sure they're aware and I imagine that they're probably not too happy with the end result either, but deadlines are deadlines and the job is the job. Some times you've built up a great framework but there's just too much room between where you are and where you need to be and not enough time to cover that gap. Trying to rewrite and readjust is hard and takes time that you don't have. Clapping your hands three times and magically teleporting to the end state? That's easy. And that's what they did with Karlach.

I've done more or less the same thing too, professionally. I've been part of releasing products with code that would rank a solid F- if it was ever subjected to review. I've written most of that code, even. I don't want to, I feel bad about it, but deadlines are deadlines and it's not like the customers pay extra if the code is nicer. They don't care. Investing time into code quality therefore has literally zero return.

And just like Larian isn't likely to ever go back and rework the story bits that make no sense whatsoever, my employer isn't likely to ever go back and rewrite the awful products that we've released over the years, because those products did the job they needed to do and there's no business sense in revisiting them. Similarly, what is Larian's case for revisiting Karlach? Her story arc is really damn good, right up until the point where it becomes hot garbage. But it holds up long enough to do what it needs to do, and falling off a cliff after that point doesn't really matter. Same as the rest of the writing in the game, isn't it?

It's a damn shame. The wasted potential, from an artistic perspective, is enormous. But from a business perspective, BG3 is a smash hit. The vast majority of players are the people who watched Game of Thrones, not the people who read A Song of Ice and Fire.

As much as the endings for Karlach may hurt, and the tragedy can seem senseless with all of the opportunities in D&D and what we see in game. The fact they're already trying to ease the pain and improve it, is a great show of good faith.

It's insane to me that people are looking at what they've currently added in, in only the second patch which included tons of bug fixes, and thinking it's only getting worse. More to the point with what Nessius says, it only took them 28 days. Animating, coding, voice acting, etc. is a LOT to do, even for the short bit we got on hand. What I think is actually more likely is the edition to the Avernus ending may have been some of the cut epilogues they were talking about, that didn't really suit their vision. Only to see how much of a favourite Karlach is, so they sought to remedy it somewhat. I doubt this was cobbled together in a weeks time, not fully anyway, and may have been some unfinished product that was removed earlier in development. Maybe the smoking thing made more sense at that stage and they kept it now for the hell of it. Maybe I'm just making excuses. But they are clearly dedicated to this game, which has been outstanding, and are responding to the players in a more positive way than I've seen devs do in a very long time. Give them a chance, and the time, and I think we might be able to get a more fulfilling ending for one of our favourite characters.

Regarding some of the other ideas to 'fix' the issue in game:


Finally, Larian, who's never really done DLC before, is already talking about how they want to make more content for the game, they're just not sure what. Maybe there will be an adventure in of itself
They're going to add more to the game, and the voice of the community has been rather loud, especially over Karlach. Just... please give them more time than a month after release.

While I appreciate your optimism, the fact that they call the ending "What she (Karlach) deserves" does sound very final.

I know, it does sound final, but I can't help but feel with the various different wording regarding it, like 'Adding a new optional ending' and 'Additional scene to conclude the ending in which Karlach-', there's something lost in translation. It makes it confusing, so I do believe it's not quite that finished.

Time will tell either way.

Well, given the dissatisfaction, I imagine it wont be. This is just a restoration of cut content, which is fine. But there's work to be done which can't happen as quickly as just putting something that already exists back into the game. Give it time, a Definitive Edition or something major will come when Larian has had the chance to take a break, invite actors back, and so on.

The "good thing" is (in big quotation marks), that we're not alone here. Minthara and her missing content thread is even bigger, another big topics about how the act3 is incomplete are all over the forum (same situation on reddit and Steam). Larian knows for sure, that the game is not complete. Now the question is if Larian is satisfied with final release or will improve the final act.

Does anyone know what the tattoo on Karlach's upper back says? I noticed it briefly during a dialogue.

Also, Karlach's story is rich for future content. I don't think Larian will pass up the opportunity to use Karlach as a sort of binding agent to various plot points throughout all the acts and potential expansion/sequel material.

The character was apparently revised close to release, but regardless of that, it ended up resonating to such a magnitude with so many that it cannot be ignored.

Larian's quick response to the floodgates of feedback regarding Karlach shows this. The community feedback thus far as likely kickstarted new ideas on their end already.

Just posting to keep the thread going in the hopes Larian sees its still alive.
firstly I am grateful to Larian to giving us SOMETHING more then the endings that shipped at launched,(and in record time too) its giving me enough reason to want to play the game again on a few planned playthroughs knowing karlach has a ...less grim outcome at the very least.
that being said, Larian if you see this post I do hope you guys seriously consider giving Karlach a True happy ending with our Tavs, the game its self is amazing, the journey is a masterpiece, the ending just didnt seem to stick the landing . but letting me have an epilogue -how ever short- of Karlach and my Tav having dinner with her friends would would make this game be a story id want to experience again and again.
Heres praying for a Definitive edition will some added story/quests. hell I would be more then happy to throw money at you just for some DLC for it