I'd post this in technical problems but it seems like it's not just bugs, rather, questionable writing and game design. Let me explain.
The narrative is railroaded while the gameplay isnt.
After landing on the beach, you're free to go wherever you want... Except that if you don't go where the developers want you to (which is anyone's guess) the entire narrative of the game will COMPLETELY break. Im talking characters mentioning things that literally haven't happened yet. Or possessing knowledge they shouldn't have.
Sorry but i literally cannot play the game in these conditions. It feels like the story is AI generated because everyone is talking non-sense.
And no, im not skipping dialogues or cutscenes.
I will make a summary of my 10 hours of gameplay that completely broke my immersion to the point where i just gave up. It's gonna be a wall of text so im sorry.
Also, this is my experience on a completely blind playthrough, haven't even watched the trailers.
Summary:
So i go through the tutorial and wake up on the beach and whatnot. See Shadowheart. I wake her up without trying to inspect her artifact while she was asleep cause i thought it was rude to go through her personal belongings while she's unconscious, Especially as im playing a paladin. She doesn't really talk about it. Whatever, must be something related to her character that she will open up about eventually, since she's seen carrying that artifact on official art. You can literally see it on the banner on the top of this page.
We talk about the parasite and how we're in a race against time, but first and foremost we have to figure out where the hell we are and find a healer. Okay, seems reasonable. We just landed somewhere after being abducted in some aliencraft and going through portals between several planes of existance. In her own words "it's anyone's guess where we are". Again, it is also heavily emphasized that time is of the essence. Does the game reflect any of this? Nope.
The first living beings i meet are the looters on top of that building a bit ahead. What dialogue options do you get?
Asking where we are? Where the nearest settlement is? If they saw what happened with the huge aliencraft that just crashed nearby? Nope.
Your character only has the options to say "Nah, the loot is mine" and fight them over it, or persuade them into going away. Not a single reasonable option like "Listen, i don't care about this building, it's all yours, i just wanted to ask some questions" Priorities?
I then meet Astarion and Gale. The former pulls a blade on me. Not exactly a great first impression. But for some reason im forced to lick his boots instead of having the option of attacking him. Ugh. I just don't let him join the party and that's that.
I then meet Lae'zel. Her captors say Nettie could help us. While she says she knows a githianky cure. Great, something to work with. We have two leads.
We stumble upon the grove entrance where some people are being attacked, and we make it inside. I explore a bit, and find a secret cave. There's this unconscious gnome druid that i rescue. Him and my character start talking about Halsin being missing. And by that i mean they act like my character already has knowledge of who that is supposed to be. UH??? What the hell game? This after a bug where he wouldn't even talk to me and i had to redo the fight. Greeeeat.
Anyway, we talk to some random npcs and Baldur's Gate is mentioned, you as the player can infer you're at least in your planet/plane of origin, specifically the sword coast. This doesn't seem of any relevance to any of the characters though, who just earlier were wondering where the hell they ended up. Well, let's go see this healer Nettie. We get into a conversation with Khaga first, and finally learn who Halsin is. Now the healer seems kind of suspicious. Asks me to promise i would kill myself if any symptoms showed up. No thanks. She turns aggressive and i have to kill her. Go through her notes to see if there's anything useful about our condition, and get some quest markers about Halsin in the goblin camp. But first i better get the hell out before they see Nettie's body and the whole town aggros me. I also inform the thiefling parents that their child is dead, so maybe they're gonna cause some commotion while i book it.
Anyway, these druids seem like they won't be of any help. So fuck them. we're going with Lae'zels lead.
On our way there we find some statue that seems to upset Shadowheart. Turns out she's a priestess of shar, which doesn't go really well with my oath of vengeance paladin. Lacking the option to kill her, i just inform her that this is where we part ways. Except she doesn't really leave my group, she just waits goes back to camp. What? But alright. We circle over the goblin camp, and find the Githyiankis. They're after some weapon. Lae'zel lies a bit, and afterwards she says they're after our artifact??? WHAT??? What artifact? WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT?!
We cross the bridge west and our characters fall to the ground and have some vision about three shrouded figures. An artifact, just like the one Shadowheart had appears in front of us. My character takes it. It's bound to me apparently. I proceed and we're brought to camp. I go talk to Shadowheart. She tells me that the githyianki want the artifact. Specifically, says this:
"That thing is shielding us somehow. I don't want to know what would happen if we lost it." ????????????????????????????????
Now my replies are even more puzzling.
"There must be more to the artifact. You were sent to take it, you must know why it's so important."
"The artifact is shielding us, but ultimately, you wish to give it away?"
She was sent to take it??? WHAT? I NEVER EVEN SPOKE TO HER. How does my character know all that??? And it's shielding us??? Since when?
Everyone talking about stuff that im not supposed to know. I reload and this time instead of talking to her, i just attack her since she must be bugged and my original intent was never having anything to do with her anyway. She doesn't even fight back and dies. Gale and Lae'zel dont react at all, like i just casually killed a mosquito and not one of our companions. Cue cutscene where the artifact goes from Shadowheart's body to mine. Even though i already had it after the bridge cutscene. My companions go: "it seems like the artifact has found a new owner." They're not even supposed to know of its existance.
Literally what the hell am i supposed to do at this point? This game is unplayable. It's a role playing game where you can't roleplay because going where you're not meant to go just breaks the game. There is right and wrong dialogue options, except we're not talking morality, but the game working as intended.
Im so disappointed. I didn't even mention some of the nonsensical dialogues from minor characters, or the horrendous gameplay bugs.
If it was just that, i could've handled it. But when the entire story doesn't make sense, on top of the gameplay being a buggy mess? Sorry.
I also basically skipped over most of Act 1's content, because again, the game acts as if you're gonna die soon. So it would be silly from a roleplaying perspective to worry about random secondary quests. I thought the group would soon learn that they're immune to the parasite or whatever, maybe after speaking to Nettie, and from there i would be free to go do what i want or pursue the main quest.
Any attempt at immersion is basically impossible.
I don't even wanna know how buggy it gets in the later acts.
So dear Larian, either railroad the players, or account for the fact that they may not go where you intended and in the order you thought, speaking to x people and picking y dialogue options.
