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

Hello!

Dice are once again rolling, and the Patch 7 Closed Beta has gone live on Steam!

If you’re one of the randomly selected players to take part, you should now have an entry in your Steam Library called Baldur’s Gate 3 Playtest (with Gale’s handsome face staring at you).
If you haven’t, don’t worry! We will continue to add players throughout the Closed Beta, so keep an eye on your Steam Library.

❗Spoilers ❗
As not everyone will have the opportunity to participate in the Closed Beta, we would appreciate it if you could keep any spoilers about the new evil ending cinematics to a minimum, so players can enjoy these themselves once Patch 7 releases in September!

I have set up this thread for discussion of Patch 7 content and the Evil Endings. You are free to start your own threads but please make it clear on the title that they are about Patch 7 and spoiler text when necessary.

You can also find a Feedback thread on this link: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=945766&#Post945766

Thank you all!

[As stated above, please expect Patch 7 spoilers underneath this post]

If I may receive a simple yes or no response from anyone in the know, does the Emperor have any new content in the upcoming patch?

My overall reaction & feedback after seeing all the extended evil cutscene(s) for Dark Urge and Tav;

Naturally after the original lackluster 2 minute end-cutscene (where our main character merely sits on the throne before the game fades-to-black) it feels great to now have an extended 6 minute end-cutscene where they actually do something before it fades-to-black. The bar was already set so abysmally low that literally anything will look great compared to that, so sure it's nice to have it extended by 6 more minutes (which should've been in-game since launch, not a year later).

However these extended end-cutscenes for the evil playthrough are merely the equivalent of the good playthrough's end-cutscenes at the dock during launch ("yay the Absolute is dead, nice job everybody... GG, ROLL CREDITS!"). They were not satisfying conclusions for the good story back then and they certainly are not satisfying conclusions for the evil story today regardless of how visually impressive they are.

Where's our evil epilogue? Where's our actual evil aftermath? Where's our satisfying ending where we get to see what our power accomplishes on a grander scale? Where is our evil post-credit scene with the Dead Three taunting Withers instead?



As someone who became a mega fan of yours by blindly buying into BG3's Early Access due to your true artistic passion and immediately afterwards bought DOS2 and DOS1 as well because I wanted even more of your passion (all 3 becoming one of my favorite games ever); it is absolutely saddening to see how drastically your evil stories have degraded (both in writing and care) since Divinity Original Sin II, which as a kickstarter game with a far lesser budget had a satisfying evil story with fully developed endings that offered equal epilogue content and throughout the story had interesting evil choices with interesting outcomes spanning throughout all acts and especially the epilogue.



With characters like Lady Vengeance, Windego and the God-King, Voidwoken and Fane, Saheila and Sebille, Sadha and The Red Prince, Adramahlihk and Lohse. Even entire locations such as Fort Joy, Reaper's Coast, Arx and the entire world. We went from DOS2's long-spanning evil choices resulting in fates far worse than death with an epilogue showing just how miserable everyone and the entire world is, to BG3 comically mimicking Doctor Evil from Austin Powers every chance it gets with its evil choices immediately killing off any evil branching story in its infancy to preserve budget;

You die! He dies! They die! EVIL!


To properly conclude the evil story with proper epilogues you should've been drawing inspiration from the amazingly portrayed Vlaakith's throne room ending scene for Ascended Lae'zel or Cursed Dark Urge's epilogue ending, which splendidly shows just how evil truly ruins people and eternally condemns them to fates worse than death. And from that inspiration came up with an equally eerily, dark and messed up epilogue to properly conclude an evil playthrough by showing the miserable state of the world with our companions instead suffering dreadful fates worse than death as they're ruled by our main character who became a God (just like Divinity Original Sin 2 had its epilogue showing a dead miserable world and our companions if one sided with the God-King). Because when the evil journey is already the most unsatisfactory content-deprived experience where any potentially branching story immediately gets killed off in its infancy, at the very least ensure the ending is so fascinatingly well concluded to make all that waste of time and effort worth it.

This also could've been a chance to bring Gortash back; to have an actual ending with him, to surprise your audience who are investing their time into a significantly underdeveloped evil playthrough. "Hey remember Gortash, that amazing character voiced by Jason Isaacs? Yeah he now has an actual ending and Bane shows up in it. GO WILD GUYS!". But no... as always just frantically kill off everyone tied to the evil journey the instant they start to display any interesting branching story on the evil path. You had Gortash as a villain right till the very end and chose to kill him off. What a waste.

Was hoping for an actual quality conclusion to the evil story that respects player agency (like the good playthrough does with its revisions, an epilogue and a post-credit scene) and had these extended cutscenes been merely a part of more upcoming content updates to ensure the evil playthrough is brought up to par with the good playthrough then I would not be so critical. But intentionally ignoring the evil playthrough since Early Access and then years later merely extending its lackluster cliffhanger cutscene in such a poorly rushed way as the final content update... sorry.

Far too little and way too late.



These extended evil cutscenes as they stand are ultimately the final nail in a coffin that shows just how uncared-for and poorly thought-out the evil journey in BG3 is from start to finish where every potentially branching evil story is immediately killed off in its infancy in order to save budget, cutting off all its branches at every corner before they even had a chance to grow. I won't even bother amusing the idea that taking control of the Absolute could have been used for good. To rebuild or create a better world by getting rid of evils such as Vlaakith, Zariel or Lolth, something that Minthara implies with her own good ambitions on the good path. An actual pragmatic would use the Netherbrain as a tool to help or improve reality and we could have been the next Gortash.

And so at the journey's end the only thing I can truly praise is the visual quality and cinematography of these extended cutscenes as they've accomplished visual badassery of epic proportions with their unique outcomes, was incredibly impressed with them. Truly well done. It's just a shame it's nothing more than fancy cliffhanger eye candy to quickly wrap things up in the most uncaring way, which ironically completely killed my interest for a Patch 7 evil playthrough when it should've done the complete opposite.

I'd rather have a well written evil story with no cutscenes (like DOS2), than epic cutscenes with a poorly written evil story (like BG3). At least with the original cliffhanger I was able to headcanon a satisfying proper ending for my Dark Urge and Minthara.

I bow to you, that couldn't have been written better. You describe it really well. I've seen pretty much all possible endings and after a few conversations here, I'm very disappointed. I think the emotional bond we have with your companions after all this time is completely underestimated.

It is a very weird idea to analyze endings in a vacuum. Endings are a climatic moment for the whole campaign and it just feels wrong to separate them and butcher them in a wall of text based on your specific vision for an ideal ending. I've not seen the endings myself for this exact reason, so maybe you are even right. But I'll refrain from giving feedback until I actually experience them, which would definitely be done through playing a proper campaign, in game.

+1000. I give your post a standing ovation.

Thank you guys for the appreciative comments, it's warming to see other Dark Urge players just as passionate about the character and its unique romance with Minthara/Astarion who are supposed to fully accompany the character to the very end.

As an addition to my post above, I've also come up with this visualized 4th endgame choice concept that respects player agency and previously established character motives through incredibly minor additions yet significantly satisfactory results;

CHOSEN DARK URGE & MINTHARA/ASTARION 4th ENDGAME CHOICE;




That is what a Chosen Dark Urge player would expect a proper end with Minthara/Astarion to actually be, easily accomplished with incredibly minor additions and minimum amount of effort required to make the extended cliffhanger a satisfying proper conclusion.

And despite there being no evil epilogues I'd be happy with it because it would at least respect the player agency and especially the previously established character motives. Minthara and Astarion were literally made to be the only companions with us till the very end, wouldn't settle for anything less.

Thank you ... I have a little tear in my eye, not just because of Sceleritas' photobomb. But yes, that would be a simple ending that a lot of players would be happy with and it would be the simplest means. I think Minthy & Astarion deserve at least an ending where they can stand by our side and go with us to the end of days. As you say, as evil Durge only Minthy & Astarion will accompany you until the end of days.

You are unfortunately so right. I came across Gale's ending while browsing the youtubes recently (it has been delisted since) and I would love to comment on it, but my head tells me that without any context and not being in the test group, I shouldn't, at least not on the official channels. So I just hope that some of the play-testers notice the same things and point them out, while I sit on my fingers. ^^

Your post is so well written, Crimsonrider, that I feel the need to write a reply. I'm not a beta tester, so I don't think I should post much about the endings, that's why I'll simply agree with your review and emphasise the things you mentioned.


THESE especially!

Gortash is the biggest wasted potential in the game for me. I was quietly hoping for him to show up after all, but I guess that's it for him.

The endings are indeed just extra scenes with no proper aftermath. They're gimmicky and some of them are really fun, but it's just not enough to be a satisfying conclusion to such a long game.

That's how I was thinking of roleplaying my Seldarine Tav - to destroy Lolth and also Vlaakith for Lae'zel (and for my own satisfaction because she made things personal), then get rid of the untrustworthy and obnoxious brain and proceed to the normal good ending with Ascended Astarion.

I also felt emotional reading the description of your proposal for a fourth Durge ending. This would be such a wonderfully dark and powerful ending!


You've written so many extensive and insightful posts, pointing out plot shortcomings and have given so many great ideas how to improve the game for people who don't want to play as a heroic knight in shining armour and prefer to hang out with morally ambiguous characters, I applaud you. It's a shame you don't work for Larian.

Considering the sad news at today's final game event, I may as well finish my thoughts regarding these endings. Also thank you Ametris for your kind words.

Without any Patch #7 spoilers;

As the final addition to the original post I wished to express what an evil player would expect an actual proper conclusion for the evil story to be, through one of my favorite main characters - the Emperor.



When it comes to the Emperor for example; the motives and ambitions that drive his character are wonderfully established during a good playthrough. Unlike the other illithids he has no interest in fulfilling the Grand Design, his primary purpose in life is survival at any cost, even if it means giving up his freedom for it. Ultimately the only reason why he goes against the Absolute and helps us in return is because it threatens his very existence, which is why even at the end of the game although he considers taking control of the Absolute, he ultimately does not because then he'd be forced to go to war against the powerful Githyanki Empire. All he wants is to ensure his survival, be free and go back to the shadows in order to continue being the Emperor of the underworld, enjoying the intricacies of local diplomacy and the shadowy manipulations of its events.

During an evil playthrough on the other hand if the player convinces him to take control of the Absolute in order for them to rule together; neither the original cliffhanger nor the extended cutscene actually establish any character ambition to explain his motives for becoming the Absolute. The extended cutscene is intentionally as ambiguous as it can be of any further character development, failing to portray what he ultimately wants to accomplish beyond the cliffhanger, because the true purpose of these extended cutscenes isn't to conclude the story properly, but to cinematically portray our characters in the most comically cartoony mustache-twirling-smirking evil ways in order to just visually impress the audience; "You're evil! Evil I tell you! Pure evil! Do you see how evil you are?! Are you impressed yet?! Let me show you some more! More evil!"

That's why they're visually impressive cliffhangers, but terribly lackluster in substance and therefore not proper story conclusions. The good playthrough also had visually impressive cliffhangers at launch, yet despite that half of the story being significantly far more developed since it was prioritized throughout development, the community was not satisfied with mere cliffhangers. It took revisions, a proper epilogue and a post-credit scene to properly conclude the good journey in a satisfying way by actually showing character ambitions beyond the dock scene and what each of them ultimately accomplished.

An example of a proper evil story conclusion based on the Emperor's character ambitions;

The game fades to black after the visually impressive extended cliffhanger and then opens up with the cinematic mural of the Grand Design transforming into an actual in-game rendition of the Illithid Empire in full motion as its epilogue cutscene. Showing the ambitious Emperor having established a safe and thriving Illithid Empire with all kinds of races in absolute unity, and our main character at his side as his non-illithid Empress (if romanced), surrounded by our illithid companions as advisors before the credits ultimately roll.



To accomplish this ending, the player would have to;

• Romance the Emperor
• Persuade him to take control of the Absolute at the end

Through this his romance becomes elevated by having an actual satisfying endgame outcome (instead of just being a pointless hentai sexual kink with an achievement) and provides an ending in which the player gets to see the Emperor's ambition realized and their character ruling at his side (like Minthara/Astarion are supposed to rule by ours). This is what respecting player's time and effort actually looks like, and with just a tiny bit of imagination and care the evil story could've been beautifully salvaged and drastically improved.

Despite this outcome originating from an evil choice, it's not trying to cinematically portray the most cartoony mustache-twirling-smirking evil through our characters. Instead it's just an evil choice with a morally ambiguous outcome resulting in an interesting fate for our main character, our companions and the entire cosmos. Ultimately leaving it to the player to ponder just how negative or positive it may be. It's open to interpretation while providing an interesting conclusion.

Unfortunately we will never get to see these kind of proper endings. Evil players are unfortunately out of luck due to official announcements made months in advance stating no more content will be coming and to make matters even worse the community's feedback on these endings got drastically segregated with this Closed Beta (as is evident wasn't even publicly discussed until I kicked the hornet's nest).

These extended cliffhangers should've been in the game since launch and Update #7 should've been our proper evil epilogues where we get to see evil ambitions properly realized. This is a story rich RPG after all. As someone who plays both sides of the story, actually tries to enjoy its lackluster evil side and pays attention to all the lore with 1200 hours invested into the character of Dark Urge and a significant amount more into the evil side of it trying to improve it (as is also evident by my signature documenting all issues regarding Dark Urge & Minthara on an evil playthrough, which these endings are supposed to enrich)... I would expect a story rich RPG to provide equal content for the evil side of it and a proper conclusion when pouring 150+ hours into every single playthrough.

But alas, we ain't getting it anymore. That ship for us evil players has way in advance prematurely sailed in its very infancy without even giving us a chance to provide proper feedback on it. I was hoping for at least the Chosen Dark Urge ending with Minthara/Astarion romanced to properly be addressed, since that one is literally dismissing previously established character motives and completely disregarding player agency because it's too rushed trying to visually impress, rather than properly concluding the story in a respectful and satisfying manner.

It's too late now as the update arrives next week.

Crimsomrider, it is admirable how much work and effort you have put into giving Larian extensive feedback after all this time.

Personally, I have decided not to bother anymore, after watching some of the evil endings on yt. It is tiring to watch all the fan feeback go into a void. Minthara is basically getting the same treatment as Viconia, where her previously established characterization does not matter, she is just used as a prop character in the evil side of the story (or in Viconia's case propping Shadowheart's story). Wyll's evil ending is so disappointing and out of character for him. Karlach's evil ending is just ridiculous (so thanks to brain power she does not need a heart anymore?!).

BG3 has fun combat, I enjoyed honor mode and I am looking forward to fanmade mods, but I am done with Larian's storytelling.

Thanks for mentioning Wyll's ending, I managed to hunt it down to see it for myself and... yeah... devastating to see. I was not aware it was so bad even articles got written about it, it's even worse than the lore contradicting Dark Urge one. At least Dark Urge's can be salvaged with minor additions, but Wyll's I truly cannot salvage.

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 he'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. Because that's all these cutscenes aim to portray, just a very childish evil bully for the sake of shoving into the player's face how evil they've become.

Just like I said;


A few days ago I was joking with someone how I intentionally didn't include Wyll's potential evil epilogue ambitions into my original post because Wyll's just a nice guy. I truly have no idea what Wyll's evil ambition could be, other than probably becoming Karlach's ULTIMATE EVIL sidekick yet again as a joke. But in all seriousness I personally saw his ambition and motive as;

• Him becoming so fed up with Mizora he eternally imprisons her to torture her and then becomes so consumed by hate against devils he fully embraces becoming the actual vengeful Blade Of Frontiers from Early Access, paying a visit to the Hells and slaughtering the devils with such brutality he eventually fully evolves into an archdemon himself by the time he's done. Ultimately becoming the very thing he hates.
• Repulsed by his new form, but believing himself to be a hero doing the right thing, he establishes a fake utopia in Baldur's Gate by dominating the population to idolize him in order to cope with it.

It would've been beautifully poetic since he's a hero corrupted by power that just wants to do the right thing. A sort of bittersweet evil ending where he truly does the right thing on a grand scale, but ends up so corrupted by it he ends up a villain just trying to cope with the consequences, so demonically deformed even Mizora can't look at him out of sheer terror.

But after seeing his actual unique ending, it's truly devastating to see because Larian knows how to write captivating villains;

• Ketheric Thorm who is evil precisely because he loves, precisely because he cares, precisely because he has a family he wants to protect. A daughter he is so attached to he'll even tadpole her just to preserve the last essence of his family. He's a family man, a father, a husband trying to create a world where someone like him won't have to suffer the loss of a wife and child ever again.
• Gortash who is not evil for the sake of being evil, but because he was wronged as a child and sold to none other than Raphael of all people in order to pay the bills. He came from nothing and fought his way to the top in order to create a world in which he'll never again be used as a bargaining chip for others.
• Orin who as a child was born into a deranged family, with her own parents imagining best ways to murder her in order to please Bhaal. She had no way out, never stood a chance of a normal life, misery is all she's ever known and ultimately had to do the best she could with it. Someone who completely breaks down when she learns the truth she's merely a product of her environment, a child of incest merely created to be sacrificed.

But when it comes to our characters they're the ultimate cartoony and selfishly deranged evil psychopaths imaginable, more deranged than all 3 main villains combined. Makes Orin look like a completely sane woman that's just uppity in comparison.

What I personally would do for Wyll is toss this unique ending into the trashcan and make Tav's Baldur's Gate generic ending his actual ending. It wouldn't be as impressive, but it would entirely fit his character. The hero who saved Baldur's Gate, by conquering it.

Seeing how patch 7 is coming out within a week already, I'm a bit more encouraged to post some things. About Wyll:

His evil ending is terrible, the worst of them all!


Paraphrasing Crimsonrider: "He's evil! Evil I tell you! Pure evil! Do you see how evil he is?! Are you impressed yet?! Let me show you some more! More evil!"

If you compare his ending to Ascended Astarion's it turns out that AA (who was branded as evil incarnate, the monstrous tyrant) is actually a much nicer guy than the preaching hero Wyll.

As someone who almost never had Wyll in my party, was half-asleep during conversations with him because they bored me so much, didn't bother to take him with me to do his personal quests (only to meet Karlach), didn't save his dad and didn't kill Ansur, because I preferred to ally with Gortash, it seems I still have a better understanding of the character than the people who wrote his new ending.

There used to be an easy answer to this in early access. Lean into his self-indulgence. At the end of the journey he decides that's who he really was the whole time and the heroism was a convenience of his bestowed abilities that affords him the luxury. He didn't even particularly hate Mizora, the past he shared with us was remembered fondly not just because of the indulgence but because he was actually getting shit done and she enabled that. This would put it a lot more in line with Ascended Astarion and Justiciar Shadowheart at the least. Rather than a cartoonish bully you get something more like a "Good Tyrant."

But with how they ripped the central pillar of his personality out of his backstory they wrote themselves into a corner. What does someone with imposter syndrome and low self-confidence (the WORST choice they made about his rewrite) do when they embrace evil? idk go full megalomaniac I guess.

What is this discussion even? Wyll is only destined for an evil ending if you play as him and lead his character there. The game provides a wide plethora of interesring situations and meaningful dialogue options, a lot of which can be interpreted as plot turning points for any desired transition. If you fail to develop a character properly in order to be satisfied with the given state of affairs in the end, thats on you... we are talking a role-playing game here, not a scripted dialogue simulator where every story bit and decision is interpreted for you, in great detail. You need to do some RP between the lines to make the things feel right and organic. If you do some actual role play you'll never get into a situation when a goody-to-shoes suddenly enslaved the world or any other absurd situation.

I don't care much for the inconsistencies Sceleritas may have brought with his comment, but I do think the evil endings are clearly phoned in and written without any interest in them, just trying to get them out of the way. It makes me wonder if the general ending was so bad not because they were running out of time and resources but because they just didn't care about the game anymore and wanted to get it over with. But some of the cinematics I've seen for the evil endings also look kind of bad and rushed so idk maybe it's because they only have a small team working on BG3 now.

I want to add that it's not even just comments that Sceleritas made, but also dialogues you share with your romantic partner as Chosen Dark Urge, and the prophecy made by the Bhaal priestess if you're romancing AA

You can roleplay your chara any way you want of course, but in this case they decided to create origin specific endings that they seem to think fit the characters best. There are no other alternatives other than the generic Tav options. There are no options to be a pragmatist using the power for the greater good, which is something one could expect from Wyll in particular. That's how I'd play his origin after seeing how he behaves as a companion.