Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Unhappy Endings Might be GOOD

There has been a lot of discission effort putting into lamenting the fact that many of the companions do not have what people think would be happy endings. I want, for a just this discussion to consider from a game world development point of the view, happy endings might not be the best idea.

By not closing loop holes, by leaving things hanging, Larian's story writings have left some AMAZING future game/adventure pack hooks in place to let this story go forward. For example, Karlach and Wyll are in Avernus, this allows them to easily be hooking into a future product where you travel to Avernus to save one or both. Or even just an adventure into Avernus where you encounter them and perhaps they help you.

What about Asterion? Well if he did not become the super evil vampire, maybe in the future you could have a chance to rescue him, cure him even. Or perhaps he himself becomes the hook, reaching out through his contacts at Baldur's Gate for adventurers to stop an evil vampire plot. By leaving things a bit hanging we have easy to implement plot potential.

I feel like the reason so many people are upset about the various endings comes down to two things. First Larian made you care about the companions in question. This is a testament to the great storytelling and voice acting we see in the game and should be applauded. For people to care this deeply about an NPC companion is actually not a common thing.

The second reason is they see this game as the end. The story stops when the credits role. I get it, that is the way a lot of games work today. However I am "hopeful" that Larian loves the ideas od DnD as much as many of us and those of us with a deep DnD (or any well done table top RPG) background know that loose threads, unresolved situations, often lead to entire new adventures.

Is this Larian's intent, I have no idea. I can hope, and as long as those threads are hanging there is a chance for that hope to live. Once you tie up everything in a neat bow with happy endings all around that hope however withers. Happy endings mean adventurers are content and moving on to normal lives. The deep hooks for the GM to use to draw us in vanish and if they try to create them, they become forced.

A happy ending for our favorite NPC would be nice it would give us a warm glow and closure. However by leaving things as they are, maybe, just maybe, we have a chancing of continuing the story and seeing this beloved NPC again.

I have no problem with bittersweet or even tragic endings. In Cyberpunk 2077, if you romance Judy, she ends up leaving you because she never wanted to stay in Night City. A fitting end.

My problem with the current endings is they're abrupt, half-baked, and some of them are insulting.


Astarion isn't the only one who got this treatment. The endings are so fast, it feels rushed into oblivion. We got no final goodbyes, some companions never even say a word at the end. The endings are underdeveloped. They can be tragic, good, bittersweet as long as they do justice to the characters. But when they're 2 seconds long and that's it?

No. Nope. Don't like.

Yep, unhappy endings can be good if they are done well.

The current ones are not.
(And honestly, I don't think Larians writing is good enough to pull it off).

I don’t mind bittersweet or tragic endings if done well. Dragon Age had a couple of those. Alistair had an ending where he sacrificed himself for the pc, or alternatively the pc could sacrifice herself, and Alistair would speak at the funeral. Solas also had a tragic romance that I thought worked well as part of the main story. Of course, not all romances should be tragic or it gets repetitive.

Halsin’s romance doesn’t work for me, however. It isn’t tragic or a satisfying part of the story for me. It is just him being a jerk by sleeping with the pc, not wanting to call what they have a relationship, and then leaving.

As far as leaving things for future games or dlc, that’s great if they are 100% sure they are going to finish the story with the same pc and have it out in a reasonable amount of time, as Bioware did for the Mass Effect trilogy. But if not you have DA:I that will end up being 10+ years between games or Andromeda that ended up canceling the dlc. If not planned as a trilogy or other continuing story, I prefer most major plot points to be addressed in the main game. Some romance endings could have them adventuring together, which would leave it open to more adventures but still tie up major plots from the base game.

Well, for me that's not working at all.

I do not make things up (I guess I lack the imagination for it) so for me the game ends when the credits start rolling. And if there is no clear defined way for it to continue after the credits (like there is a known vampire cure in Waterdeep or some such) then that's the end of the road for me. And in my particular case it's a piss poor ending for a spawn Astarion.

Who thought it was great idea to begin with to make a victim of abuse a target for cheap jokes, after all that the poor dude went through to redeem himself?

And as a whole his spawn ending feels unsatisfying and unfinished..

And regarding DLC, I thought that Sven said that they have no plans for any DLC and are moving onto the next project?

This.

Bittersweet is fine. Even at exceptional approval? I did not sign up for this shit.

Does Shadowheart even have endings? I could never get her to say anything even with her being in my party for the entire game.

Adding my voice here.

I am happy with Karlach's added 'going to Avernus' ending. I loved the character - as the best friend, not as romance interest - and this ending is completely fine for me.

But Astarion... it is just.... NO. I do not need any riding unicorns onto the rainbow with him, but....

The current ending is perfect for players who did not care about him and his arc. I was one of them in my 1st playthrough.

But in my 2nd playthrough I romanced him and comparing his end to his whole story, it is like a bad joke. I have no problem with him staying as a vampire spawn, but that dock scene with companions mocking him... absolutely awful tasteless joke.

Well i Saw People Talking about Astarions good ending a Lot.. But For me its not His ending in the Good Path that its Flat and Week for me all of then are..
I will just Share my Experience so Far with this Game and yu guys Take as yu will..
i Already Beated dont Know maybe 10,11 times this game i just Stop couting in the 7 game becouse i had to deleat most of then since 3.0
but My Tale start well.. in my First Game i went with the Hero Path so far so Good, then i get to act 3 and i start to feell a litle bit empty and Rushed but so far so good..
then the ending come.. i do actually liked the Deck scene with all of then but i always felt Man i sure did something wrong this shit was not supposed to be the Good ending ?
where is the Party, where is the Rebuild of the City, Where is anything that make me feel something for evryone i went into the Trouble of Saving even the ones that pissed my ass off the entire game like Halsin and Gale..
So i Went Back thinking i did something Wrong.. that Maybe Just Maybe i Had to do More to get the REAL GOOD ending.. so i went Exploring the entire Stuff from bottom to Bottom my friends, even looked at that Dude Werglia dont remember the Name but he beated the entire game and gave some pretty good guides so can i see if i miss something... i see it all, i did it all, i even tested the unique scenes yu get with the exclusive origins and Classes as Tav. But No. the endings are just That.. nothing i did Change it..
and so i gave up and Make a Durge and a Evil Gale i get Something a Lot Better as a True Asshole in the game then been a Nice Guy and that its kinda of a Shame for me.. i always love to see the Two sides of a Tale when comes to games like these but for me the Hero ending.. Sux so much that i last night gave up o probably my last game ever.. and dont beleave i will ever come back until they at least Fix the Amount of Bugs they gave us in 3.0 and worst.. broke the One and only companion i trully liked to Romance.. Shadowheart.. shame.

I agree with all the others who say that a tragic ending for certain characters is appropriate and even expected sometimes. I also agree that the main problem with this game is that it was taken out of the oven far before it was fully cooked. (I haven't experienced any of the endings yet, since I'm still in Chapter 1. I've managed to stay mostly spoiler-free so far, but that doesn't mean I don't notice the grumblings of others.)

I feel that gamers in general have been brainwashed about this. There are very few other industries where we *expect* the product to be finished with either future work or worse, addons that we must purchase in order to experience the completed item. (This is why I do not like Mr. R.R. Martin's work, by the way.)

Also, I am not confident that Larian will address any of these things. I'm an ancient gamer compared to many of you, and I am completely jaded by what has happened in the past with other RPG games. Once the game is out, it may as well cease to exist for the studio unless there are serious game-breaking bugs.

And another thing to consider is that Larian may not have complete control over the characters' stories. This is a WotC game after all, and they are calling the shots. Maybe the story of Tav the female high elf barbarian and her companions is already set in stone like Abdel Adrian's story for comprehensive lore purposes, with all the novels and game manuals and other items that are probably being worked on right now.

There's a difference between an unhappy ending and an unsatisfying ending.
I think what many players experience is an unsatisfying for the characters they care about. And let's make no mistake, the reason we're bickering on these forums is because we care about these characters. We went on a journey with some amazing people. We got invested in them and then at the end something falls flat.

On my playthroughs I romanced Wyll, Astarion, Karlach and Halsin. Only Wyll felt like a happy ending. And the only reason that was a happy ending was because I made a dialogue mistake and wasn't able to recruit Karlach.


These aren't sad endings I can live with. They're just unsatisfying.
OP is right that it will give the opportunity for some amazing dlc's. But isn't that a little strange? It's like a buying a book from an author who tells you: "The ending is shitty, but don't worry. I'll write some more stuff and next year you can read my book again with the ending you do like."

Like a lot of people here, I have absolutely no problem with bittersweet endings.

What I have problem with is when some of my choices and character arcs are being completely ignored. Like romanced Astarion starting to burn and having to run away from the docks and companions WHO praised him for becoming a better person suddenly crack underhanded jokes about it. Sure, have Astarion slowly scorch in the end, but have our MC react to it appropriately. When I heard Minsc's line "BOO WILL BRING YOU A SUNFLOWER!" I legit wanted to grab that hamster and violently ram it up Minsc's throat, so he'd shut up. It's how bad all the mocking is really. And the fact that the MC just stands there with a smirk on their face doesn't help.


Do you know what all those games also have? Proper epilogue, ending slides what have you. BG3 currently seems to be lacking those.
Do I want to know what Kagha did in the Grove after she was given a second chance? YES.
Do I want to know how the Myconid fared after my adventure in the Underdark? YES.
Do I want to know what happened to Lathander's monastery after we cleansed the Creche of all Githyanki? YES.
Do I want to know what happened to the Shadow Cursed Lands once the curse was broken? YES.
Do I need to continue giving examples for just some throwaway lines of how our heroics/villainy changed the lives of random NPCs/animals/places? YES. Uh, fine I will stop.

I can only speak for Halsin's ending but there is litteraly no logical narrative reason for it. Especially if you solomanced him. Ive used the phrase bait and switch in his threads and I think it is very appropriate for his ending.

Its not just I wont get my happily ever after with him. It was just bad writing, along with all of his other issues that we've gone over in his two threads.

I dont think there would be as much complaining if it was just a simple "But I diddnt want a sad ending."

Tragic, bittersweet endings can still be gratifying and appropriate even though they may be painful for us as an audience due to the emotional attachment to the characters. Old Yeller is a classic example of this. While tragic and sad, the way the story was written it made perfect sense that the events happened as they did which is what made the emotional blow so hard to take. But its still a beloved classic story, and I dont know about others but I dont want to change that ending because it was a good thematically appropriate ending, though painful.

Im not 100% sure that that is whats happening with these characters though.

I can accept the bittersweet endings. That said, something like a slideshow, similar to what you see in Dragon Age Origins, answering these questions.... would be well received, in my opinion. I know it would give me some satisfaction and closure.

I agree with the sentiment that there’s a difference between a bittersweet ending and an unsatisfying ending. Let me take Shadowheart’s ending, for example. Act three spoilers, so don’t click below if you don’t want to be spoiled.

I would say that it’s less about an ending being happy or unhappy technically speaking and more about the player feeling satisfied or unsatisfied with what they’ve invested so much time in.
(i beleave yu put in words what i have been thinking all this time thanks Ecc2ca.. thats it. lol)
i Spend dont know 600,700 hrs in the game to just fell like Mass effect 3 all over again ? Jesus.
At Least Witcher 3 and Persona 5 gave me what i want for the end..for all of then i mean.. becouse there are many in those games some even Pretty Dark and cruel if yu want..xD

I was playing Mass Effect when all the parts and DLC were already out. And I didn't understand why the players were so unhappy, for me, Shepard's departure was reasonable and logical. He's been through a lot, he's not even technically human anymore. He made such decisions that it might be difficult for a person to live with in the future.
Or the self-sacrifice of the Gray Warden is also logical, the leader goes to the end.
These are logical "unhappy endings", before which we get epic and emotional scenes with all the companions. We can say goodbye, etc.
In BG3, the finals look as ridiculous as possible. We don't have scenes before the fight with Absolute, we don't even have scenes with all of them after. I didn't have a romance with Asterion, but he got on the path of good for me, and i cant help him? Halsin's finale is just the most depressing shit. It is not necessary to justify bad work by saying that just stupid players do not understand brilliant creators.

Nope. Only if romanced, at which point the endings are way too short (as is the case for all companions) but at least good for what we have right now (even if the dialogue choice in one of them is questionable, but at least you can just assume your character will say and do the obvious thing when it rolls to credits).

None of them are perfectly happy, majority of her lines are about the negative aspects of the choices made, but at least the conversations end on a positive note with clear indication that you'll heal together in time (unless you 'unfixed' her, at which point you deserve what you get anyway).

If you didn't romance her she may as well have drowned for all you know (she didn't know how to swim, after all), if she isn't the one assigned to give a one-liner.

What you mean, Zentu, is called "open ends", but what we actually got is closer to "sloppy writing" (or editing - otherwise why so many mismatched dialogues?).

Tragedy can be good, and cliffhanger can be excellent, but midsentence stop only speaks of an unfinished product.

Unhappy endings unhappy endings, but we don't have any endings!!