D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 will now be releasing August 3rd on PC and September 6th on PS5, increased level cap, race & class details and more

[Paul Farquhar]

However, I do think there's a serious risk of going too far in the other direction. I have not, personally, played the Witcher games. But I've known multiple people who have. From what I hear, they are extremely well-written....but they also tend to be utterly soaked in misery, to the point that it's literally not possible to make a choice one could remotely parse as "good" in at least some of the quests. I no longer remember enough details to point to something specific, so I'll just say that I've had extensive conversations with fans of the games who have agreed that more than occasionally, there are literally no good answers and at times no good deed goes unpunished.

I suppose the obvious example of this is the Hag coven in Witcher 3. If you kill them, the village loses it's protection, if you don't they go on eating children. But it's not like this comes as a surprise, the likely outcomes are self-evident when you make the choice.

But it's still possible to achieve an overall "good" outcome to the main storyline, by being a good dad to Ciri.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Might be worth mentioning that origin character bios have been updated on the official site, with some significant changes: Baldur's Gate 3

 

[Burnside]

Might be worth mentioning that origin character bios have been updated on the official site, with some significant changes: Baldur's Gate 3

The second sentence of the Gale bio has a high school essay-level structural grammar issue that is a personal pet peeve of mine.

I guess many folks dislike the current iteration of Wyll, but I actually quite liked him so I’m a bit sorry to see he’s been revamped so thoroughly. I particularly liked his voice actor’s performance, too, and I gather the part was re-cast.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They only thing I didn't like about Wyll was his stat distribution.

I'd have recast Gale and Asterion.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Might be worth mentioning that origin character bios have been updated on the official site, with some significant changes: Baldur's Gate 3

Dang, that is some serious changes to their stories. Astarion is made way more sympathetic, a victim of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse for cemturies and literally marked as property of his master, that would scar anyone.

Wyll's story seems to have shifted from saving Mizora to get her to release him from his deal, to being Mizora's assassin against devillish creatures. This explains his hunt for Karlach, its not personal, she just served the wrong side in the blood war. It also explains how peace can be forged between them, she doesn't work for Zariel anymore and hates her, she might even be willing to help him hunt the infernal. It also examples why Karlach doesn't take it personal, she knows how the blood war works. I'm leaning towards Wyll origin as my first play through now.

Gale's a weird mix of love interest to Mystra and Karsus 2.0.

Dark Urge isn't meantioned, but its really just an alternative to the Daisy based custom option. One is more sexy times with you tadpole (or absolute) in your dreams option and the other is your Dexter or Hannibal Lector option.

Its clear they are more grey then they were originally, so that makes them more interesting to me.

Btw from the Panel From Hell, did anyone else noticed hotseat option without splitscreen? I think that could be used as an alternate way to easily play single player, with with the option of still having the Dark Urge in your party for example, without it being your main character.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I suspect it's not too difficult to spoof multiplayer so you can have a Dark Urge and a Tav.

 

[Ondath]

Seems like that's probably more than a coincidence.

Let's say I've heard some vague info from people who might get some insider info and what they implied was that your hunch is correct. In the teaser scenes with that origin, Bhaal's blood splatters also appeared as a magical effect under them, so there definitely will be some connection to everyone's favourite God of Murder.

The Dark Urge, on the face of it, is pretty murderhobo-y and not something I'd rather play. But after hearing that it might be tied to Bhaal and that we will always have the option to resist the urges, I'm actually inclined to have my first playthrough as this origin. I wanted to play an Origin character (since those seem to be a staple for Larian games since Divinity 2), but I also wanted to make my own character, so this feels like a great middle point. I think paragon characters are more fun when they have to go through meaningful hardship to test their ideals. Also, I'm currently doing a Baldur's Gate 1 + 2 playthrough before the games, so potential Bhaalspawn connections would make this origin even more fun.

 

[Ondath]

Btw from the Panel From Hell, did anyone else noticed hotseat option without splitscreen? I think that could be used as an alternate way to easily play single player, with with the option of still having the Dark Urge in your party for example, without it being your main character.

Could you elaborate on this? I want to play the game with my partner and suggested multiplayer constantly, but she's really turned off by splitscreen so hotseat without splitscreen would be a great alternative.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Spoilers, based on information pieced together from EA, trailers and other sources:

It appears The Dark Urge is

Spoiler

Bhaal.

And creepy goblin is his prophet.

The return of gods killed in the Time of Troubles seems to be a major theme in BG3. There are several books dealing with the topic, as well as a servant/avatar of Jergal who offers to assist the party.

Just how this relates to mind flayers and the Absolute is unclear, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was another dead god.

Spoiler response:

Spoiler

The current theory seems to be that The Absolute is the whole of the Dead Three (Bhaal, Myrkul, Bane), because the Absolute's logo allegedly incorporates all three of their symbols. And to be fair, it definitely incorporates Bane's skull-triangle and Myrkul's handprint, but I don't see any evidence of Bhaal's blood-drops or circle, so maybe Bhaal has been or feels he has been betrayed by the other two. It's also possible our boy Cyric is involved in all this in some way - the skull in all versions of the Absolute's logo is jawless, like Cyric's, but unlike Bane and Bhaal's, and in some versions of the logo there are lines radiating out in a way that's reminiscent of Cyric's starburst. So could it be Bane + Myrkul + Cyric? Talk about awkward conversations!

 

[Valetudo]

I'm making my friend play this game co op. I guess we will test the crossplay.