Patch 5 of Baldur's Gate 3 showcases the game's defining principle

As a storytelling medium, games are strange. In my daily work, I tell students that the medium-specific dimension of games is that they respond to our choices in real time: you press a button, Mario jumps. You pick a line of dialogue and a scene can suddenly become violent or comical. This means that games, especially narrative ones, are at the same time a way for us to do that tell a story and a way for us a story to be told. Clara Fernández-Vara and Matthew Weise, when they talk about world-building, call the world of a game a “story engine”: by creating a fleshed-out and engaging world, the designer builds a story. potentialwhich the player then 'actualizes' through his play.

Larian Studios Baldur's Gate 3 is a perfect example of this in action: we can and will be heavily invested in making choices during play that matter to us, creating the story of 'our' Tav along the way. On the other hand, part of what makes that interesting is that a lot of the story – the overall plot, the setting, the supporting characters – is created. for us and is beyond our control. We enjoy playing our Dark Urge as a cute, homicidal maniac, but we also enjoy hearing the bitchy twink Astarion mutter “I'm going to fucking kill you” to us after we clown him on stage forced, or taking a shot every time the Klingon-like Lae'zel calls someone an indecipherable githyanki neologism (“It is Wednesday, is'tic.”).

With the recently released Patch 5 for Baldur's Gate 3Larian has included an epilogue that thoroughly demonstrates this “tell your story/hear a story” dynamic.

(Ed. Remark: Spoilers follow for acts 2 and 3 of Baldur's Gate 3.)

The epilogue takes place six months after your party kills a giant, floating, princess-tiara-wearing brain and saves the city of Baldur's Gate. BG3 after party. Everyone's favorite bone man, Withers, brings the gang back together for a reunion dinner, so you can keep up to date with the lives of your party members, read newspaper clippings about your exploits, and be nice to Withers' grumpy demigod of music managed to obtain. as a DJ.

The content here is not extensive; Most of your party members have relatively little information about what has happened to them since the Netherbrain's death, and indeed there is a bulletin board with sheets about events in the city, next to a chest containing letters from the various people you met during your party you have encountered. adventure. Well, the ones that survived, anyway.

What's interesting about the epilogue is that the level of drama really depends on the choices you make over the course of the game, especially in the third act, with the possible conclusion of various party members' personal missions. Hilariously, because I was more or less scrupulously moral and generous in my playthrough, I got a flurry of happy endings: Gale made up with Mystra and now teaches at a prestigious wizarding academy; Karlach and Wyll make their way through hell with manic glee; Halsin runs an orphanage in the newly healed Shadowlands from act 2 and so on.

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

There were a few highlights though, especially Astarion's story. In my game I killed Cazador and persuaded Astarion to stop being like his abuser; his reward for that, after the Netherbrain died, was that he would become a 25-second joke about burning in the sun before fleeing. That always struck me as extremely unfair, considering what he had been through; he gave up being able to walk freely in the sun for the sake of personal growth (and to avoid becoming a monster like Cazador).

In the epilogue, he spoke at length about realizing the benefits of his choices and finding a new path, even if that path apparently becomes a nocturnal, murderous vigilante (direct quote: “I've taken a turn as an adventurer and a hero. turns out, no one really cares about murder, as long as you kill the right people”). As complicated as my relationship with him was, a little narrative justice for Astarion felt good, especially considering he wasn't Ascending. Mine choice, not actually his.

However, after going through YouTube, it's become incredibly clear where all the real potential drama in your epilogue comes from not by doing sidequests, or by making choices that are decided not the delicate, straight and narrow path I was on. There is a new ending scene where Vlakith eats Lae'zeland at the party (where the latter is conspicuously absent) Withers can only say “she was happy to die, I guess”, which is frankly ruined In the extreme case. It's possible that in a Dark Urge playthrough you'll wait in the bushes until everyone goes to sleep so that you murder your former comrades. like you not deal with Cazador in act 3, Astarion effectively begs you to do so because otherwise his life is miserable. Perhaps most grimly, if Gale gave his life to kill the Netherbrain, that's what you get a ghostly voicemail from him convey a final message And a little eulogy from his cat. You.

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

Am I planning on doing a third (or fourth, or tenth) playthrough of this? BG3 for the sole purpose of seeing some of the crazier or edgier epilogue permutations? Not really; the game is extremely long and, as the links above show, much of it can be viewed on YouTube. As Withers himself says – a bit metatextually, I must say – at the end of the epilogue: 'If only you could not see the paths of fate, your spirit would surely break. Be happy with your chosen path. After all, it's yours.”

My epilogue might have had the saccharine sweetness of a Disney movie, compared to the dramatic car wrecks other choices might have led me to—but it is mine. As short and sweet as it may have been, I enjoyed the game and gave me one last nod to the story we made real together.