You did WHAT to the Last Light Inn?!
While catching up with a friend recently, we were, of course, talking about our Baldur’s Gate 3 playthroughs. « Does that goblin lady from the intro cutscene ever show up again? » He innocently asked me. Goblin lady from the intro, what do you—bro, are you talking about Lae’zel?
30+ hours into this game and he’d completely bypassed one of my favorite companions, the prophesied lady version of Sten from Dragon Age, the daffy Gith who’d stolen PCG print editor Robert Jones’ heart. What did the Creche Y’llek sequence even look like for my friend? He experienced a completely different game.
That’s somehow not even the worst of it: early on in Act 2, he lost a vital NPC by accident in a crucial fight, locking him out of at least two, possibly three more companions, as well as any semblance of a good ending for the area. « I am of the ‘you broke it you bought it’ philosophy of reloading old saves, » he told me bluntly. « The die is cast. »
Bro, the die is not cast, I immediately hammer quickload every time I don’t like the die! I quickload when « Astarion Disapproves » and that happens every time I let the feral little weirdo out of the house and he sees me not murdering a quest giver. I have progressed dozens of hours deep into the game across three separate characters before beating it because I want that first time I roll credits to be perfect. Doesn’t everybody play RPGs this way?
Apparently not. PCG contributor Noah Smith praised BG3 as an immersive sim and wrote that they dropped two companions I absolutely adore within the opening hours of the game. Killing off Wyll because he’s hunting Karlach, okay, maybe I can see it. « Hey, is this guy bothering you? » But they bury the hatchet over the course of a single conversation, no skill checks required!
Farewell Wyll, your inner torment, your goofy ballroom dance come ons, we hardly knew ye.
