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Baldur's Gate 3 Designer Understands If It's Hard for You to Start Act 3

The team will mind the sudden change in the future.

Image credit: Larian Studios

There is a stark difference between the three parts of Baldur's Gate 3: Act 1 serves as an introduction to the game, it's a field full of points of interest, while Act 2 is dark and gloomy but story-heavy, too. Act 3 has received the most criticism, partly because of its performance issues and also due to the drastic change of both scenery and narrative.

If you have a hard time moving on in the last act, you're not alone: Larian Studios itself understands the difficulty. Speaking with Gamereactor, its senior RPG designer Anna Guxens shared that she gets the reaction:

"Each act has its own flavour," Guxens said. "Especially Act 2 specifically has a very strong closing moment that just shuts down a whole era of it and then starting off in Act 3, especially if you have so many hours running in the rest of the game, can feel like a much different tone and very drastically changing, right?"

Image credit: Larian Studios

I personally didn't have an issue with Act 3 the first time I entered it. I was just grateful to leave the darkness behind and step into the light again – a calculated move, according to Larian's lead writer Adam Smith, who said Act 2 serves the pacing and tests if you've learned how the world works.

However, I can see how dealing with all the heavy stuff for many hours can make you want to take a break when Act 3 comes.

"I think it's valid because some people enjoy the tone of Act 3 the most, some people enjoy the tone of Act 2 the most, I understand how this shift is something that's challenging to overcome especially, but give it a chance. It's something that we'd be mindful of moving forward as well, seeing how we handle this tone shift so that things are less drastic," Guxens commented.

Well, at least we don't have to struggle with technical problems in the last part anymore.

Which act is your favorite? Read the interview here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on InstagramTwitter, and LinkedIn, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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Comments 1

  • Anonymous user

    This wasn't why I found act 3 annoying to break into. It wasn't the tone, it was the gameplay. I'n act 1 and 2 if you didn't have anything particularly simulating on your quest long you could just go fill out the empty parts of you map and stumble into new events, fights, and NPCs. And in act 1 and 2 if you found new NPCs you almost certainly found a new event.

    I'm act 3, especially in the gate, the whole map is covered in a nearly uniform blanket of NPCs who do nothing. If you didn't feel up to pursuing what was already in your log there was very little that you could simply run into by walking around the map.

    The idea of going around around and talking to random people in the hopes one of them would happen to be tied to something new felt like a slog, and yet that's exactly what you have to do often enough.

    Not to say there weren't plenty of options for existing quests. In fact for the first time in the game the map was covered with so many quest markers they stopped looking like high priority points of interest and started feeling like errands to run.. Chores.

    0

    Anonymous user

    ·9 months ago·

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