Summary
Hundreds ofBaldur’s Gate 3fans have recently taken to social media to express their disappointment with the game’s lack of rewards for making evil choices. While many players andreviewers praisedBaldur’s Gate 3for its immense role-playing potential, this newly surfaced criticism reflects how some of the game’s courses of action are way more fleshed out than others.
Warning! Baldur’s Gate 3 spoilers ahead.As is the case with many massively successful games, Larian Studios' latest title enjoyed a honeymoon period of sorts. Most online buzz about the RPG hence skewed extremely positive until more players managed to complete its lengthy campaign at least once and became aware of some of the game’s less obvious shortcomings in the process. This paved the way for some constructive criticism from the fandom, including a recent discussion about thedisappointing handling of one of the main antagonists inBaldur’s Gate 3.
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Another example of that trend comes in the form of a recent Reddit thread started by user Parasocial_Potato that saw hundreds of players label the game’s implementation of evil choices as unrewarding at best and punishing at worst. Even thoughBaldur’s Gate 3allows for plenty of unusual character buildsthat can significantly change one’s combat experience, plenty of players found that the actual role-playing aspect of the game is much more limiting, with morally right choices usually being way more beneficial than the alternative.
The imbalance between good and evil playthroughs doesn’t just affect quest rewards, with some fans criticizing the fact that being immoral locked them out of a plethora of content, to the point that they beat the game in some 40 hours. For context, Larian previously estimated that anaverage playthrough ofBaldur’s Gate 3will take at least 75 hours.
One of the fans' most frequently cited examples of this content imbalance was the Emerald Grove quest in Act 1 during which the adventuring party can side with either the Emerald Grove refugees or Goblins. Doing the evil thing by raiding the refugee camp rewards players with a single companion, but at the expense of losing three others and missing out on a dozen unique items, a couple of ability-enhancing tadpoles, numerous vendors, and a variety of quests. This particular point of criticism actually dates back to theBaldur’s Gate 3early access period, which started in late 2020.
Fans looking to make the most of an evil playthrough ofBaldur’s Gate 3aren’t advised to act vile so much as devious. Namely, the game does provide players with plenty of opportunities to renege on their promises, so agreeing to do the right thing before doing whatever is the most profitable is often more rewarding than being comically evil.
Baldur’s Gate 3is out now for PC. A PS5 version releases on September 6, and an Xbox Series X/S version is expected to launch in late 2023.
