BG3's Act Three is Weird

I (at the time of writing) have over 200 hours in Baulder’s Gate Three but have not beaten the game once. This is partly due to my strange hangups and quirks; however, I believe there is a less subjective reason behind this lack of completion. It goes without saying, but given how I will be somewhat negative in the ladder half of this entry, it’s best if I say this now: I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Baldur’s Gate Three. It is a wonderfully written, masterfully crafted, mechanically enticing CRPG that will most likely be one of the landmark titles that set the tone for the decade, similar to how Dark Souls and Undertale did in the previous decade.

This is, by far, the closest we will get to having a direct adaptation of a Dungeons and Dragons ruleset in a video game. Larian Studios has done something spectacular in compacting the non-linear freedom of a tabletop ruleset into a virtual play space and packaging it like a fifth-edition module. This means you are getting two to three complete interlocking adventures that you can either play as one extensive, interconnected campaign or simply play the ones you like the best. Taken as a package, Baldur’s Gate Three is three 20–30-hour RPGs that I would have paid full price for individually but instead got as a combined single product. A great bargain and a great move on Larian's part. However, with each passing act, the next one grows more ambitious, threatening to break the careful balance Larian has set up to make a reactive living world for us to explore.

Now, to understand what I am talking about, allow me to summarize the general vibe of each act really quickly and spoiler-free.

Act One: start of our adventure, escape after getting a parasite crammed into our skull and stumble into a cult of Goblins terrorizing a group of Druids who may know about a cure for the parasite.

 Act Two: Continue in search for a cure, braving dark caverns and dangerous mountains to find the origins of the parasites in a curse-rotted land ruled by an immortal despot.

Act Three: Make haste to Baulders Gate to prepare it for an invasion, only to be met with the machinations of powerful and influential city rulers whom you must placate to gather enough power to strike down the true threat to the Sword Cost.

On the surface, there’s nothing wrong here. In fact, it’s a nice little escalation of stakes as the game goes on, beginning with fighting goblins in a forest, to an army in their homeland, to a tyrant in his citadel. However, the problem arises because that third act is far more dependent on the Role Play elements of RPGs. See, computer Role-playing games, like all other RPGs, are in some way trying to emulate the limitless possibilities of playing DnD on a tabletop with friends. The only problem is that the human imagination is limitless, but RAM is not. So, a framework has to be set up by the designers telling their players what tabletop elements they will be keeping and what parts they will be tossing aside. Such restrictions gave us the JRPG and Western RPG branches of game design. The former focuses on Jobs with simplified abilities and combat like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. Meanwhile, the ladder concentrated on exploration and character building, like in Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.

Going into Baldur’s Gate Three, it is made very clear early on that the game leans more on the tactical combat elements of its source material. This allows for various spell and ability interactions that players can toy with to create different solutions to the same problems. If you plug any section or boss fight into Google right now, I guarantee you will find at least twenty different builds or interactions, each more manic than the last. Like sacrificing one of your companions to a blood god so you, as a Tiger Heart Barbarian, can turn each combat encounter into a one-sided maiming as you leave your opponents a weeping, bleeding, crippled mess on the floor. Or have your Way of the Open Hand Tavern Brawler Monk attack six times in one turn, dealing 15-45 damage per attack. The bottom line is that the game is more than happy to have you break it in every way imaginable, but it has to draw the line somewhere so we can have all of these options, and that line is through role-playing features.

For all of its wonderful characters, fascinating quests, and rippling decisions, Baldur’s Gate Three is a Sword and Sorcery Adventure Module. If it were to be played in fifth edition DnD on a tabletop, it would be run as a series of combat encounters with limited social encounters. No getting Razlan and Mintha to fight and kill each other, no tricking Gut into abandoning her faith, and no turning the Gourmand into a vegan. To be clear, none of those things are possible in the digital game, either. If they were there, Larian would have had to write, design, and track hundreds, if not thousands, of new dialogue and story variables. This choice would have detracted from the game's combat, leaving both systems lackluster.

So, a decision was made, and the more role-play elements were axed, except not entirely. You can still role-play in BG3; your options are limited, and the characters you can play have to be simple, but it is possible. In my own accounts, I have a Paladin who lost and regained his faith, a Dark Urge fearful of the harm he will bring to those around him who finds solace in Karlack’s optimum, and a Sorcerous learning firsthand that the world is cruel but there are still good people fighting against it like Wyll. However, things get slightly more complex once we move past Act Two and into Baldur’s Gate proper. Gone are the goblin camps and towers of evil; now, we must form alliances, find allies, and play the game of thrones with two backstabbing bastards who hold all the power. In short, we’ve moved from playing a swords and sorcery DnD module to a Vampire the Masquerade module. Where diplomacy, relationships, and clever wording win encounters more times than raw firepower.

Therein lies the problem with the final act of BG3, its sudden tone shift. Until now, I was free to galivant around, knowing that while my actions were being recorded, I was not limited. Act three changes that by adding restrictions that the game did not, nor cannot, teach you to deal with. At its heart, Baldur’s Gate Three is a tactical role-playing game with minimum social interaction systems asking you to build relationships and weave your way around master manipulators, tyrants, and psychos. It is a game that went from open wilderness to secluded towns to a packed city, all with the same transition.

Now, don’t take it the wrong way; I am in no way saying that Act Three should not have been this ambitious, nor should Larian have made it closer to the first two, nor should they have added more complex features that would only be used in a third of their game. No, I am saying that when we walk the streets of Baldur’s Gate looking for allies and avenues to thwart those in power, it should feel no different than prowling the wilderness for witches. Same rules, same boundaries, different locations.