Baldur's Gate 3 Lead Writer Explained Where 17,000 Endings Come From

When it was revealed that Baldur's Gate 3 has 17,000 ending variations, many fans were shocked and excited to uncover them all. Of course, most suspected that these endings would differ very slightly because otherwise the six years Larian spent on the game would turn into an eternity.

The game's lead writer Adam Smith clarified what this number actually means and how many real endings there are.

He said that this perception of multiple choices comes from a misconception of a branching narrative.

"It's not that you start at point A, and then you keep branching and branching and branching," he tells me, his hands tracing an arboreal outline in the air between us. "That's often how people think of it, but the problem with that would be that if I make a choice, then I branch over here, and suddenly I'm over here and I can't get back [to the trunk]."

He compared Baldur's Gate 3's narrative to a "big spiderweb" where the end of the game is the center and the start is the outer edge. "So you're always heading towards the same point, and what happens when you get there is very different. But it interweaves, so you're kind of dancing between plots."

Smith added that getting the player back on track can be really hard. The world is living and your actions affect it too, so if an important character gets killed and they're not available anymore, it becomes a problem, but there is always another way.

"The game reacts, the game can let that happen. You can always pull yourself out of it and get back to the plotline. There's very few points in the game where you can be like 'I don't know what to do next. We try to make sure you always have direction. Even if everything goes to hell, or you decide to just kill everyone, you can pick up the thread and say 'I'm gonna do this next'."

So as you might have guessed, there aren't 17,000 distinct endings, these are just all the different paths you can take during your playthroughs. In fact, the real number of endings is much more humble – in the very low double digits, according to GamesRadar. Still, it's more impressive than many games can offer, and your journey to the end is what you should focus on anyway.

"We're not going to say this is a world that changes with every choice you make. What we are going to say - and it's true - is that the characters react to every choice you make. Everything you click will cause something to happen. Sometimes it's small, sometimes it's subtle, but it all means something from the very first clicks."

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Baldur's Gate 3 Lead Writer Explained Where 17,000 Endings Come From

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