After I loaded into Baldur’s Gate 3’s new epilogue, what I discovered was extraordinarily candy, virtually saccharine. After parting methods with my true companions within the OG ending, some seemingly going off to their deaths or assorted metaphysical torments, it felt like an actual “the Fellowship has failed” second.
Now although? All my buds got here again for a six-month reunion social gathering, and all people’s doing nice! Companions with dying sentences are on the highway to restoration, and the great turns I did on my quest all appear to have simply made folks’s lives higher. Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity: Unique Sin 2 forward.
As a self-serious, literary-minded RPG liker, I are likely to prize stuff that is darkish and unhappy and ambiguous: Planescape: Torment’s existential tragedy or Fallout: New Vegas’ intractable mire of post-apocalyptic ideologies. The factor is: Baldur’s Gate’s simply by no means been that form of sequence. Inexplicable Nietzsche quote apart, they’re video games that middle basic heroic fantasies, the place virtually everybody might be saved and a golden ending achieved in the event you get the whole lot proper (apart from Viconia, and all people hated it).
You might be deliciously evil in the event you’re so inclined, nevertheless it matches the heroism beat for beat in fantasy straightforwardness: whether or not you are embracing your murderous heritage as a baby of Bhaal within the unique video games or siding with evil goblin cultists towards a bunch of refugees in BG3, it is all the time enjoyable and attention-grabbing, however by no means terribly nuanced.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s epilogue offers you straight solutions: is letting Gale or Astarion turn into a godlike being a foul concept? Oh yeah. Is Shadowheart happier in the event you maintain her mother and father alive, albeit a bit of cursed? You betcha. Is it a foul concept to not get your Bhaal homicide mind difficulty sorted out because the Darkish Urge? No bonus factors for proper solutions on that one. These are all penalties that make sense, and whereas BG3’s epilogue removes ambiguity and clearly spells out what selections are proper and fallacious, the want achievement nature of its story and the best way it clearly telegraphs the results of your actions make this really feel like the appropriate match for the sport.
Bummer summer time
I completed two different huge RPGs between Baldur’s Gate 3’s launch and the discharge of this revised epilogue: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and a replay of Larian’s earlier hit, Divinity: Unique Sin 2. These are video games the place not all people will get to win, and the results of your actions aren’t all the time clear.
Phantom Liberty nails this kind of narrative: it is a noir story the place well-intentioned, likable characters are pitted towards one another with no room to work issues out, and also you’re ultimately confronted with an excruciating alternative the place each choices betray somebody who put their belief in you.
The growth’s megaton bummer endings match that story. What’s extra, CD Projekt Pink was confronted with an analogous narrative downside to Larian, in that each Cyberpunk and BG3’s launch endings go away you with questions whereas additionally introducing sufficient potential character deaths and establishment modifications to be tough to deal with in a follow-up story.
The place Baldur’s Gate 3 shortly happied up its ending, even going as far as to tease the story’s continuation within the new epilogue, Cyberpunk doubled down, setting Phantom Liberty in the course of the principle recreation and introducing a brand new alternate fundamental ending, The Tower, that’s in some way extra bleak than any of the others. 2077’s endings had been as a lot about theme and message as they had been offering satisfying conclusions and tying up character arcs, and I admire CDPR’s dedication to leaving them untouched.
Divinity: Unique Sin 2 stumbled in trying one thing comparable: it is a recreation with a comparable heroic tone to Baldur’s Gate 3, however its endings all have a discordant, bittersweet be aware to them that comes out of nowhere. Not less than one companion romance will inexplicably and abruptly break off, and after an entire recreation depicting deities as merciless, capricious beings which have ruined the world, the one “good” endings for the setting see you assuming divine energy for your self or investing it in one of many recreation’s fundamental villains.
I all the time choose the anarchic pinko ending the place you cut up divine energy equally between all of the folks of the world, and this nets an epilogue the place everybody’s so egocentric and highly effective, the world devolves into everlasting warfare. In the course of the playable denouement, all people’s all like “Hey, I feel you picked the fallacious ending.” Screw you man, I like my ending!
Group edit
All of which is to say, I really like tales which can be grown up, ambiguous, and desolate, nevertheless it has to suit the story, and Baldur’s Gate 3 simply is not that kind of recreation—it solely makes you’re feeling such as you tousled in the event you miss clear indicators or resolve you need to be intentionally evil. Feed into your companions’ insecurities as an alternative of serving to them, facet with the marauding goblins as an alternative of the peaceable refugees, signal your soul away to a homicide cult: these selections end in predictably grim conclusions.
Should you flip your fundamental character or Karlach right into a Thoughts Flayer through the endgame sequence, it is made fairly clear that they’ve turn into a monster, and no matter’s left of their earlier persona has been essentially altered. Gale, empowered with the Crown of Karsus, has fairly clearly gone mad with energy. Ditto for in the event you sacrifice like, 200 youngsters to show Astarion into an Ascendent Vampire. And do not even get me began on what occurs in the event you fail to treatment the Darkish Urge. Do bummer stuff, get a bummer ending—it simply is smart.
The ending I obtained was fairly mushy and candy, however that tracks—I saved the rattling day each time! Should you select to show Baldur’s Gate 3 right into a extra darkish and morbid story, it adjusts accordingly. A downer ending, very similar to a cheerful one, needs to be earned by the story lest it really feel low-cost or abrupt, and Baldur’s Gate 3 enables you to take your choose of both excessive or a bittersweet mixture of the 2. It doesn’t matter what, it follows out of your selections.