Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart and the Overgrown Ruins

Saw a potential issue, maybe not a big deal, but I'm curious if anyone else has seen it.

My little brother has just started playing since patch 7 released. At one point after he was in the Grove, I asked what he thought of the crypt.

"What crypt?"
"Under the Overgrown Ruins."
"Huh?"

Basically, without Shadowheart banging on the door, he hadn't even realized it was a location. He missed out on a fairly important part of the game.

Sorry if this is mentioned elsewhere, if it is, it's buried past page 5.

Hardly an issue as Shadowheart isn't the only (or even strongest?) event pointing toward this location. Not many players are supposed to be able to access the crypt through the door Shadowheart was banging on - and there is a rather easy to find enterance up top.

It seems that your little brother haven't learned yet the core rule of an RPG: "Find where you are supposed to go, and go the other way first"

I was actually just thinking about this potential. Kinda ironic. I asked myself, "What if I HAD gone left just outside the nautiloid as opposed to right?"

Answer? I would not have met Gale, not would I have gone to the crypt, and I might even miss Lae'zel.

How does that impact the game? Not much, actually. 2 less companions, maybe, and you miss the death safety net which is Withers.

I've used Withers maybe once since EA began. Not a huge loss. Are there story elements you miss? Not much. Maybe a few hints at the overall story. Nothing huge. Any cool items? A spear you may or may not use.

So, overall, no big loss. It's actually not a very important part of the game.

Nope:

Is this really an option? I should try it in a new playthrough.

In my opinion the loss of Gale, the crypt and possibly Lae'zel were a big one. But I don't see that it is a very probable flow of the game because it's quite obvious that you should follow the route towards the "Gale waypoint" and further on towards the crypt, led by the road and by the black fog you can erase on the map.

I'm usually very bad in finding stuff in games but even I found the crypt by myself without problems or looking into out-of-the-game information.

Actually, there's a bit of a bug on Withers going the other way: Even if you find him in the Overgrown Ruins, you still get a dialogue option with him later about finding an empty sarcophagus.

For my own part, I totally missed Asterion for most of my first playthrough.

I would argue that being able to miss out on the crypt or certain companions, etc. is one of the great features of this game.

I'm on my 7th playthrough and still have not got the owlbear cub in my camp. I didn't discover the kua-toa until my 3rd or 4th playthrough. You could miss the hag, the harpies, or even the entire underdark. It gives the feeling of reward for exploration. And even if you are thorough in your exploration you will have to wait until subsequent playthroughs to experience everything.

Anyways, he could always go to the crypt much later in his playthrough. There is luckily no required order other than some content being too difficult for 1st-3rd lvl.