Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Patch 7 Closed Beta Discussion

I believe that can happen regardless of if you're the DU or not, as long as you become the Unholy Assassin. And then, even as the DU (if you don't embrace Bhaal) you could also just choose /not/ to conquer the brain, thus having the prophecy be possible.

EDIT: My bad, while you do need to become the assassin, her question is locked behind the flag that you're the DU. But you could still choose not to embrace Bhaal afterwards, I think? I believe the choice to become the assassin predates the encounter with Orin, but it's been a hot minute since I played full blown evil durge. Also, to be fair, you can already as the player take steps to break her prophecy after the fact, if you wanted to (of course it feels a bit different for the player if they chose it or the game chose it for them) by, for example, becoming a squid. It's not set in stone. Alaundo also predicted Aylin's revenge, but that can also not happen at all if you so choose.

Well, all that's to say: I don't find such inconsistencies all that important when there's a bigger, glaring issue with these endings, in my opinion. A lot of this stuff you can handwave away pretty easily "Sceleritas was lying" "Her prophecy was just poetry" etc etc. It doesn't seem the craziest thing to me that a Chosen of Bhaal wouldn't want to create more life (as Sceleritas so... succintly describes) rather than ending it for everyone.

Luckily the concept solution I've provided to address the Chosen Dark Urge ending does not require them to call Emma Gregory (Minthara), Neil Newbon (Astarion) nor Amelia Tyler (Narrator) back to the recording booth. Everything is in place as is, they just have to put the 4th dialogue option in and have the love interest remain at Dark Urge's side throughout the ending. Easily done.

The quoted inconsistencies are merely evidence to put the point across that the request to address the botched ending isn't coming from just a random fan demanding their waifu be included, instead it's actual solid undeniable proof they're truly dismissing established lore, character motives and disregarding player agency. Because throughout the entire game all the player keeps hearing is Dark Urge x Minthara/Astarion together forever in the crimson apocalypse, but then the ending does a complete 180, not even giving the player the option to roleplay properly because they're so poorly rushed.

I can forgive writing inconsistencies, but I cannot forgive sloppily rushed endings that don't even allow me to roleplay the character properly, especially after making us wait over half a year for... this. I also was going to include the full dialogue of the prophecy with the Echo of [Whichever] from the Tribunal, but unfortunately all my saves are after I killed Orin or in ACT II's Shadowfell. Just didn't have the motivation to go through it, but I might go torture myself even more if it gets Chosen Dark Urge players their proper ending

I can agree the endings are sloppy and rushed, and that Larian tends to forget both previously established lore, either by 5e or the previous BG games. I unfortunately highly doubt they will change the endings at this point, though. Look how long it took them to just implement these. They're clearly done with the game, and honestly, at this point, maybe they should just stop, because the stuff they keep adding just keeps getting worse.


(On a completely different note- I also really like the new icon- Orin is lovely! Do you happen to know the artist?)

EDIT: Forgot to say, in case you reload that save for the prophecy: you won't be able to trigger it unless you're romancing AA specifically.

That's ok if you think so. For me it's a huge problem regarding player agency as Crimsomrider already described very well. I strongly feel there should be at least one option where you can still be together with your partner. Instead we get 3 options where you're pigeonholed into not being allowed that, no matter your roleplay choices beforehand.
Not to mention other things which seem pretty illogical, like why kill the illithids right away if you want to have an illithid army, and why kill your partner immediately as they're also a very strong asset who would help you with your conquest. Not saying the option can't be there, but then the other option (to remain together) should also be available.


Thank you again for your dedication and all the amazing work that you do!! If you need the video you can PM me and I'll record it from my save.

The prophecy is dependent on AA as he grants you immortality, and this choice is only available as a Dark Urge as it specifically targets how you want to die as a Bhaalspawn. I don't think you have to be an assassin to do that. Only talk to the priestess.

If you play the Origins as your Avatar, the basic turmoils and conflicts that drive their character arcs are still the same as when they are your companions. Unless you choose to go completely wild, the story gives you reflection-points to consider your character's motivations that are specific to them. If you decide that their story leads them down a dark road, it is still their dark road. For example for Avatar-Gale his personal story is still driven by the conflict between seeking Mystra's forgiveness and seeking power so he might not need it. A brain-grabbing ending in his case should play on these themes to feel fitting. So an evil ending for Wyll should also feel like an especially twisted version of himself, in which he deemed taking control of the brain was the best choice to achieve his goal.

Exactly. And the player is perfectly equiped to make his ending feel fitting. For example, Wyll was never in control of his life since Mizora/Tiamat happened. He did best with the cards he had, but it wasn't enough, not even close. He got used and killed Karlach. He failed to protect the Last Light In, even with warlock powers, a lot of people died to the curse, as he thinks, on his behalf. Then he immediately got abused by Mizora once more, pulled into the resque mission against his will. He failed to save Yenna from Orin, he failed to rescue his father, Gortash controls him. He had enough of being weak and the promise of power seems real, he goes for the Astral-Touched Tadpole. His circuits rewire, he becomes more calculating, more pragmatic. With the newfound powers, he sues for peace with Gortash, eradicates Orin. Drunk on success he schemes to sabotage his truce with Gortash and overthrow him as well, sides with the Ironhand terrorists. By that point, Wyll is accustomed with the concept of collateral damage, he is not a fairy tale hero, nothing comes without a price. Sides with the Ironhand terrorists, destroys the foundry, let's them kill the gondians. By this point Wyll can be considered a neutral evil character, who fights for control over his own life and power to take it. The further developments could lead to control over others as easily. This is just a single example.

That is a great idea! I think (though I am not quite sure if I remember correctly, would have to replay the scene) this is even one of his magic door answers in act one: to humiliate Mizora. And Wyll becoming a sort of vengeful antihero would be amazing, because: whoever fights monsters...

Frankly, considering Mizora gets the sort of plot armor protection in act three not even main story characters get, I believe she is the writer' 'pet favourite'. So neither the player or Wyll are allowed to get revenge on her, not even after obtaining the ultimate power.

@neprostoman, what you are doing in your explanation (and I am sorry if I understood you wrong) is knowing and end and then tailoring the play-through to suit it. The argument here in general seems to be that Wyll's current evil ending isn't one that you couldn't organically reach without knowing it in advance.

In my case, yes. I am not 100% sure about the first playthrough, since I played as a custom character. I believe the developer had exactly this in mind. Sven, in one of the pre-release interviews, recommended to play the game as follows: firstly, as a custom character, then as each of the companions and only then as The Dark Urge.

However, this is the same approach I used when playing as a custom main, just going with the flow and seeing where it leads you. I can totally envision this as applicable to any first playthrough, not just the custom one, even especially so. Consider this - while you experience the game first hand as an origin, you actually avoid railroading the plot, since you don't know the baseline choice for any scenario ('good' choice, in Wyll's case). You are even more free to make your own decisions that can result to a polar opposite of what's been in store for the character originally.

The main reason why I heavily oppose any of Crimsomrider's ending ideas is thus: this is a game about our unique stories, about OUR stories. Not only Crimsomrider's. His choice of endings is too closed, too specific. This might be his story, but it is certainly not mine. I'd rather prefer an open ending with a possibility to interpret, rather than 4 fleshed out endings I get sucked into every time.

P.S. Of course, with an open ending there comes a chore of interpreting it for yourself based on your ability, but it is a toll of any RPG worth playing, especially the one related to DnD.

If you don't mind @neprostoman, I'll come back to you in a week or so, when we have all had a chance to actually see these endings and had a moment to simmer about them. At the moment I feel like I am talking in general terms about something very specific and I don't feel quite comfortable doing this.

I definitely have some things that I would expect from some of the endings too, simply based on the characters' stories and on how their origins play out.

Sure thing Anska, I am waiting for the patch myself, but it'll be a while till I get to the endings.. am a bit slow in my playstyle, it usually takes me several month to complete a full pt.

These are dark times for the game indeed.

I'm mostly curious to see if they'll even bother to address anything about these extended cutscenes, because if we disregard for a moment how obviously they were rushed just to wrap up the game as quickly as possible in the cheapest way imaginable;

• Shadowheart's evil actions fit the character. However haven't seen the romance aspect of it.
• Lae'zel's evil actions fit the character. However haven't seen the romance aspect of it.
• Gale's evil actions fit the character. However haven't seen the romance aspect of it.
• Ascended Astarion's evil actions fit the character. However haven't seen the romance aspect of it.
• Chosen Dark Urge's evil actions fit the character, however the romance aspect contradicts the character. The romance aspect requires a 4th love interest option to address this.
• The Emperor's evil actions fit the overall main story, but don't develop the character any further beyond the original cliffhanger. Best way I'd describe it is if the game ever got an evil main story expansion, his extended cutscene is exactly how an expansion would start, a direct 6 minute continuation of what was already happening in the city since it's pretty grounded, overall uneventful and overly ambiguous. As it stands it should've further developed his character by establishing an actual character ambition, to show what he plans to ultimately do as the Absolute after Baldur's Gate.
• Wyll's evil actions contradict the character. Unsalvageable in its current form (11k dislikes, 700 comments).
• Karlach's evil actions contradict the character. Unsalvageable in its current form ("The hells was that!" - Karlach.)

Ultimately leaving Wyll players, Chosen Dark Urge romance players, Karlach players and potentially Astarion/Minthara romance players very unhappy... so what they gonna do now. They closed the production lines, worked silently for over half a year, intentionally limited feedback with this Closed Beta and now they get to hear the other half of the community that's been left in the dark for years. No epilogues even, nothing.

Curious to see how they respond to community feedback now. I really hope those 'Community Support Award(s)' aren't just for show, but we'll see what happens I suppose.

Also Orin's artist is Shade Of Stars.

I'd also add to the list that Lae'zel's ending fits the character.

It's already disappointing that the only way to keep the romance going with AA/Minthara is to choose option 1, which is also not 100% clear. Otherwise you see them kneel where the scaffold is, dead or mysteriously missing.

Thank you Ametris for coming to the rescue with the two cutscenes! Having seen Lae'zel's extended cutscene; now that's an amazingly badass 10/10 cliffhanger that fully respects her character motives, properly sets up her evil ambitions and sets up for the aftermath. Happy to have predicted it with the original post because that's exactly what she'd do. Naturally it's still a cliffhanger, but it's a truly badass one. My favorite of them all.

Karlach's on the other hand... dear Lolth preserve me, she received the same treatment as Wyll. Everything I said about Wyll stands for Karlach too. There's no evil story or character development here, this is just pure character butchering for epic visuals. No actual ambition nor reason to be doing what she's doing, completely out of character, an imbecilic psychopath just throwing a tantrum instead of having actual established ambitions and motives to ultimately accomplish something of worth on a grander scale. A shame. I did love she's actually voiced though, that was nice.

It's funny having predicted her ending too, but the way she accomplishes it is just so awfully executed. It screams to me; "Hey guys, we don't have the budget to make all this visually happen in Avernus, so lets instead have it happen in Baldur's Gate to save time and resources.". It's so cheap to cut corners like this and as is evident ends up destroying the character and the story.

That's what I have been pondering about for a bit. I can't say much about Durge, because I lost interest in that very quickly, but for the neutral/good Origins who end up with Ascended Astarion and then make a grab for the ultimate power, it is very hard to not read Astarion as at least part of the driving force behind this shift.

I can only say it with certainty for Avatar-Gale, in who's case Astarion is written as the devil on your shoulder, who encourages you to consider your own will over Mystra's, who's word about controlling the artefact at the heart of the cult run through your head before going to sleep and who praises you oh so prettily for every power-grab you make. It's a shame that they simply had the romance drop for Avatar-God-Gale (especially if said god is also a vampire lord's spawn) but not having him (romanced Ascended Astarion that is) feature prominently in the Absolute ending, would be giving up the subplot that started in act 2 and could now be realised. (Maybe even with some back-stabby action by Astarion if you didn't control him but also didn't become his spawn akin to the House of Hope ending, or some allusion to him planning to puppet-master the newly minted Absolute.)

Once again, I'll point out for the sake of your average passerby, that there is no such character as 'evil Wyll' or 'evil Karlach'. There is a way to play those characters as evil avatars, and the way of play is only contradictory if you make it so. I feel I need to point that out for anyone who might fall for the flashy presentation of a fundamentally flawed idea. Evil actions require evil motives, evil motives can be justified by role playing.


Again, what a fundamental misunderstanding of 'roleplay' concept. Role playing happens in the moment and what you describe is not role playing, but asking for some fan fiction of yours to become a universal truth set in stone for every player. I'd like an ending that is written by a professional writer who understands the material they are working with. It is not a book, not a written story and not a script, it requires interactivity, reactivity, sometimes ambiguity, painting with big strokes. No good... ta-ta! No fan fiction for me, please..

Maybe because I am an older BG player, but frankly I don't care about the distinction between fanfiction or proffesional writing, because I have played and enjoyed a lot of BG mods made by fans. Example: BG1 project, which I have enjoyed more than some of Bioware's professional writing, like Minsc, who continues to be the same old joke of a character over decades. Also, when you play a premade character, you are already playing with someone elses creation.

And so I don't care for making up a story to fill in where the writers should have done their job. This is how the dark urge run was for me and it was not fun. Larian planned from the beginning for Wyll and Karlach to be origin characters, so they knew they could be played on an evil run, so they could have come up with something. Like they had for EA Wyll.

Trying to dictate what "correct" roleplaying is to another player is not going to be a constructive discussion. Especially when you start projecting that word of god from the author is more valuable than the roleplay itself, doubly so in this case when the word of god has no consistency.

Equating a desire for the quality of writing to be better with fanfiction as a derogatory remark is intentionally insulting.

And I care, therefore I advocate for something that benefits me, because surely I care about myself more than about you. The distinction though is in the details, while a railroaded plot might suit your tastes better, it limits players in roleplaying, because roleplaying is about, let me remind you, dear @Auric, playing your character as you see fit and the world reacting to it. Pushing specific endings can be perfect for your playstyle, but it would not hold against thousands of different playstyles. Creating thousands of endings for Wyll is surely out of question, therefore a middle ground is needed, a type of an open ending that will be coherent with the rest of the story yet not too specific to ruin someone's idea of fun.