A Half-Finished Final Act (Spoilers)

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A link to a Redditor Who Compiled all the Cut Content

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15udnhh/compendium_of_cut_content_from_final_version_of/

Devs release a masterpiece of a game and then when you get to the end you realize they never finished the last 10% of the narrative because they had to rush to beat Starfield to market. Great game until you spend 150 hours only to realize that there is no conclusion to the story.

The first act, which is where most of the reviews are coming from, is impeccable. I mean a triumph of RPGs. Aside from a few minor UI glitches and T-posing Goblins it's fantastic. The combat is tactical and fluid, it allows you to make any choice you wish as long as you can handle the consequence, it provides RP for your race and class so that you feel immersed in the world and honestly it's one of the better RPGs out there.

Then you get to Act 2, still good, lots of content, but a lot more bugs start to show and suddenly a lot of narratives seem to glitch out entirely.

Act 3 is where everything unravels at the seams. Act 3 is maybe almost finished but it's damn near impossible to tell because the sheer volume of cut content causes what they left behind to glitch and bug and literally shatter your save game because it's not holding itself together with the missing content.

Just some bullet points of things cut from Act 3

- The largest portion of the titular city of Baldur's Gate.

- Karlachs last Act of story - she dies (or leaves or becomes Mindflayer) so they can Deus Ex her off screen while leaving a huge quest chain unfinished.

- Minthara's last act of story - Minthara being the last addition to the team suffers the most. They cut an entire subplot where she was meant to be pregnant during the events of the game.

- Most of the sidequests ending - There are a ton of sidequests still in Act 3 but a lot of them either have meaningless endings or no ending at all because they were cut for time. This has lead to people constantly trying to figure out what's going on.

- Dialogue Triggers - So many of them were cut that companions suddenly do a 100% reverse on their opinion of you. Companions that hate you are suddenly dear friends and will reference quest chains that you never even did, companions that love you will watch you die in the final battle with a glassy-eyed stare because they suddenly don't care whether you live or die.

- The Epilogue - They were meant to be there but now when you beat the game you get a fade to black and the game is just over. There is no continue, no new world state, no way to see if your choices mattered. It's just over and nothing happens.

- The Endings - They touted 17K ending variations. There are 5 endings and no variations at all. Either you free Person A and save the Town, don't free Person A and save the town, Become a mindflayer and save the town, or become a Mindflayer and conquer the world. Of course Dark Urge adds in a whole 2 extra endings! Either you dont become a mindflayer and conquer the world (same exact cutscene though) or Bhaal blows your head off. I mentioned a 5th ending, it's taking a deal with the Devil Raphael and it's a joke. You get a blank red screen where Raphael looks directly into the camera and monologues to the player about their evil plan before a fade to black. Again, there are no variations on these.

- The Illithid Worms - There was meant to be a system to reward or punish players depending upon how much they relied on the Mindflayer parasite eating their brain, this was cut. The exact same thing happens if you refuse to use the power ever as happens if you shove every parasite straight up your nostril and spend half the game tentacle-crushing every NPC you meet.

- Consequence of Choice - You find out in Act 3 there are none. Nothing you did before matters, your endings are all the same and every NPC you interact with basically forgets they ever knew you the second you get to the final battle area. Not that it would matter, because the lack of a continued worldstate means that you'll never see any of them again unless you start the game all over.

That's just the cut content of course, not mentioning the fact that Act 3 is corrupting saves, causing massive bugs, messing with people's questlines, and causing gear to randomly disappear for no reason.

I started looking into this and found that basically everyone in Act 3 was having the same experience, but every time it's brought up all you can hear is the praise for Act 1, which again is flawless. I looked further into it and found out this is exactly what Larian does with all their games. They're known for releasing a game without core pieces of it's ending and then releasing the game years later with the cut content restored and selling it for another $60. EDIT: It turns out Larian releases the Definitive Edition for free if you own the base game. So not another $60.

It's a terrible feeling to drop 150 hours into a great game only to have it draw the curtains in the final act and tell you "Good Job" while leaving the last bit of the story to your imagination.

A Few Edits: It's been pointed out to me that there are a couple of other things worth mentioning.

1) Jergel, a god of the dead, follows your camp for the entire playthrough in the guise of Withers. WIther's is there to ensure the defeat of the Dead Three and yet despite the fact you have one of the more powerful gods traveling with you this never amounts to anything for narrative sake.

2) There's a meme ending where Gale can blow himself up to save the day, this results in a cutscene where your companions mourn Gales passing... Sadly the cut triggers cause the cutscene to glitch and leave Gale standing behind you to mourn his own death.

3) Wizards of the Coast pushed for a Bhaalspawn story, Larian pushed for Mindflayers. The end result is one in which Bhaal is somehow being linked to Mindflayers in a way that feels rushed and convoluted and results in the system where Mindflayers aren't reall Mindflayers they're just tentacled good guys with no negative Mindflayer traits.

Further Edits

Apparently a crafting bench was implemented at one point, removed, and then ultimately cut. It seems originally we were meant to be able to fully craft our own armor, weapons, and jewelry but that sadly didn't make it to release. We do have the left behind items though, in the form of ingots, gemstones, and other various material items that ultimately are reduced to vendor trash.

One dude called my specs into question because clearly I have a potato. Here they are:

Intel i7-11700F
RAM 64gb DDR4
GeForce RTX 4080
2TB Sata SSD (Gaming Partition Exclusive. My work is on an M2 SSD, my OS is on a 1TB Sata SSD)

I'm aware they aren't the best, but they're far and above anything needed to run Baldur's Gate 3.

https://twitter.com/LarAtLarian/status/1691479778488909827?t=nU5VXengKi7SgPZJTT4ihA&s=19

Swen tweeted this out today. The current roadmap for BG3 post-launch is set as follows.

A) Hotfix 4 (Just a hotfix, likely to be small) EDIT:They broke everyones saves who played during Hotfix 4s 6 hour launch. That's roughly half a million people who lost several hours of saves temporarily
B) Patch 1 including over 1000 bug fixes and tweaks
C) Patch 2 including requested content from players.

It's impossible to tell what patch 2 would include at this point, but hopefully some restored cut content and ideally Karlach and MInthara's final story. Either way the fact that Larian claims to be working on a patch with over 1000 bug fixes and game tweaks already is huge and would go a long way toward making Act 3 potentially so much better.

I've been working on compiling cut content datamined from various sources:

1) The Upper City - The most obvious one. Swen himself talked about the "Affluent Upper City" just 2 weeks before launch and described as it being fully explorable and yet it's very noticeably absent from the final game.

2) Shar Worship - In EA the player was able to select Shar as a diety which game with it's own unique dialogue trees, especially when interacting with Shadowheart as a fellow Shar worshiper. Despite the fact that voice lines were datamined indicating this had functions well into Act 2, it was cut when the game launched.

3) Karlach's Ending - Datamined content shows that not only did Karlach have a full ending where her infernal engine was fixed and that she survived, but that most of it was fully voiced and complete. However it required triggers from the Upper City portion of Baldur's Gate and when that was cut, so was Karlach's Act 3 storyline. What we have behind have been confirmed to be Karlach's "fail state" endings which were meant to only play if the player neglected her quest chain.

4) Minthara's Story - Minthara was meant to have a much deeper story, including a pregnancy. These were likely cut due to Minthara being a late stage addition to our roster but dialogue lines remain in the games files that show that not only did Minthara have a lot more content for herself but your other companions had a lot more to say about it.

5) Halsin's Story - Another late addition to the roster, Halsin was originally intended to have a great deal more endgame content involving the Druid circle, but this appears to have been cut more early on than some of the other items thus far.

6) Raphael the Merchant - Originally Raphael was meant to be a fully viable option to remove your tadpole, in fact the "Soul Coin" items that you collect in game where originally meant to be a powerful alternative currency accepted only by Raphael in exchange for possibly retrieving your soul as well as a long list of incredibly powerful artifacts from the House of Hope that would be sold by Raphael himself.

7) Avernus - An entire area of the game. Avernus was meant to be fully explorable and of similar size to the Underdark Area of Act 1. It would be a source not only for Soul Coins but other rare materials, highly difficult fights, and special content for Karlach.

8) Tav the Dark Urge - A lot of people were both surprised and excited to see the addition of The Dark Urge origin as the Bhaalspawn/Evil option that was missing from EA. As it turns out, Tav was originally the Dark Urge and they were all one origin. Tav was meant to be Bhaalspawn and separating the two seems to be what caused the narrative divide between the Dead Three storyline and the Mindflayer plot.

9) Omeluum's Ring - In the EA version of the game this ring would block your Tadpole entirely. It could not grow, it could not grow stronger, and you could not use Illithid powers. In the launch version this ring prevents you from being charmed despite Omeluum still stating that it blocked the influence of the Elder Brain/Absolute.

10) Bhaal and Orin versus the Creche - An entire Act 2 battle was cut in which Bhaal's forces, led by Orin, attacked the Githyanki creche which led to a fight where you either sided with one or the other or had a massive 3-way fight on your hands.

11) Orin and the Dragon - Orin was meant to corrupt a Githyank red dragon, leading to a boss fight against a Slayer-formesque Dragon.

12) The Hag Coven in Act 2 and 3 - You may notice that accepting Auntie Ethels help in the first Act can lead to a negative effect when fighting Hags. You may also notice that despite Auntie Ethel having letters from other Hags in her basement, she is the only one you encounter. Originally there was meant to be a full three act story involving the Hag coven including the mysterious "M" who seems to have been their leader.

13) Epilogues - Full epilogue cutscenes have been datamined that varied greatly depending on your choices. These were the "17K ending variations" that Larian told us about, yet they are completely absent in the final game leading only to a fade to black scene at the end of the game.

14) Cazador's Story - Originally Cazador was meant to play a huge role in the Upper City of Baldur's Gate, including being a huge political power. Datamined content also shows that originally he was meant to be a potential ally in the final push against the Absolute.

15) Banite Cultists - The game features both Bhaal and Myrkul cultists rather heavily but Bane is reduced to Gortash alone. Despite the fact that they had full and finished assets for both armor, weapons, and some events the Banites were cut from the final game.

16) Act 1 Minsc - Minsc was meant to be recruited at the end of Act 1 but was cut and pushed back into the later game.

17) Dialogue and Events - Even from Act 1 itself, thousands of lines of dialogue and companion events were cut from the final game. Some of them were even fully voiced and ready to be implemented in game but also referenced other content that ended up on the cutting room floor.

18) Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane as Deities - Cleric's were meant to be fully able to select the Dead Three from the list of Deities. There were even special dialogues in game for player's who played as a Paladin and then multiclassed at least 1 level of Cleric on top and selected one of the Dead Three.

19) Daisy - It's not a secret that Daisy was cut from the game after the last EA release and replaced with "The Guardian." Originally Daisy was representative of the tadpole in your head, not the Emperor, and would attempt to seduce your character into staying in the meadow by the river with her forever. A happy life with an imaginary dream lover while your body underwent ceramorphosis and was lost to you forever. Daisy was such an important part of the plot that both of the games theme songs "Down by The River" and "The Power" are based entirely upon Daisy. Datamined content also shows there was originally an ending where players would embrace a romance with Daisy and give themselves over to the parasite, forever leaving their individual consciousness "down by the river" with Daisy.

20) Companions and the Illithid Worm - Originally companions were meant to accept or refuse Illithid gifts independently of the player choices. You could of course influence them through dialogue to decide who did and did not take the offered gifts, but ultimately it would be based on individual characters choices. This can still be seen in game as a bug when companions will awake after a long rest and claim to have received a gift from their Guardian and yet will have gained no actual power.

21) Romancing Jaheira - Apparently you were originally meant to have limited options to romance and sleep with Jaheira but these were cut last minute. It's unclear why.

22) Tadpole's and Consequences - There were originally meant to be severe consequences from using the Illithid powers too heavily and investing too much into the Tadpole powers. This seems obvious in game and yet ultimately in the release version goes nowhere as the ending is reduced to about 4 choices made in the last leg of the game. You can use all tadpoles or none and receive the same ending.

23) Act 3 Companion Dialogue - If you've noticed that companions have much less to say at the end of their journey it's because thousands of lines of dialogue were cut from companions in the final Act and all for various reasons. This also seems to be the source of most of the companion bugs that only appear in the final act as they're still trying to trigger events that simply no longer exist.

24) Multiple Cutscenes - There are multiple cutscenes that were present for Act 1 that are missing from the final game.

25) The Nautolid - A large portion of the Nautolid tutorial zone was cut in the final release, including cutscenes, dialogue, areas, and an optional fight with 2 injured Imps. This was likely cut for the sake of brevity more than anything.

26) Mol and Raphael - Isn't it odd how Mol will just escape from Raphael on her own and say it was "easy?" Well it turns out that's because they cut whatever the final leg of that quest was meant to be, instead they allow Mol to escape on her own which more or less skips to the end and around the cut content.

27) The Raven Queen - There was an entire second part of the storyline that was cut early on.

28) The Voice of Bane - It's possible to have a brief conversation with Bane, but it remains incomplete as the dialogue is unvoiced for some reason.

29) The Wither's Epilogue - WIther's was meant to narrate an epilogue for the players, to what extent is unsure but instead WIther's is left with a single event in the entire game when post-credit's he can be seen revealing himself as Jergal and mocking a mural of the Dead Three.

30) Crafting - An early access build contained a crafting bench and it seems originally we were meant to have full access to crafting/enchanting gear of our own through certain systems. While these were cut, the items for them were not. This is why items like ingots, gemstones, woods, and other material items appear in game with no use other than vendor trash.

[Shadowblade]

Publicado originalmente por Myr Superion:

Like D:OS2 all the love obviously went into Act 1. Act 2 managed to be alright, and then the last portion tripped before the finish line.

So I'm not the only one who felt that way, everything after Reaper's Coast just felt so underwhelming, The last two islands were so short

[Dr. Sinclair]

Publicado originalmente por Rubyeyed:

Now this is depressing news. So basically it's better to just wait for the enchanced edition or whatever and this version is an EA+ ? Maybe I gave Larian too much credit after DOS2 but then again, I played it around 2 years after the release of definitive edition.

Honestly i'd say it's worth playing if you keep in mind that you may be somewhat disappointed in act 3

[Nani!?!?]

Publicado originalmente por Rubyeyed:

Now this is depressing news. So basically it's better to just wait for the enchanced edition or whatever and this version is an EA+ ? Maybe I gave Larian too much credit after DOS2 but then again, I played it around 2 years after the release of definitive edition.

Seems like it. I was furious to get so far into the game and find out that Karlachs ending was cut and that none of my choices amounted to more than window dressing.

[Myr Superion]

Publicado originalmente por Shadowblade:

So I'm not the only one who felt that way, everything after Reaper's Coast just felt so underwhelming, The last two islands were so short

I think everyone had a big problem with it. Larian seems to have an issue sticking the landing in their games.

[Darq]

use ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SPOILER TAGS, title spoilers aren't enough

[Shadowblade]

Wish I could favorite a post

[Dr. Sinclair]

Publicado originalmente por Darq:

use ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SPOILER TAGS, title spoilers aren't enough

just don't click the topic that has spoilers in the title for christ's sake...

[Scrubwave]

Publicado originalmente por Shadowblade:

Publicado originalmente por Myr Superion:

Like D:OS2 all the love obviously went into Act 1. Act 2 managed to be alright, and then the last portion tripped before the finish line.

So I'm not the only one who felt that way, everything after Reaper's Coast just felt so underwhelming, The last two islands were so short

No, you're not the only one but that hardly matters. See, frontloading is good for the reception- players get wowed by the first hours, bloggers write their fascinating reviews which really are just first impressions and a game gets "overwhelmingly positive" on Steam.
Meanwhile, take a look at how many people even reached Arx in DOS 2- https://steamcommunity.com/stats/435150/achievements.
Which begs the question- if a game has overwhelmingly positive reviews but only 1/5th of the players could be bothered to reach its final act, what does it say about the game and the validity of their reviews?

[Nani!?!?]

Publicado originalmente por Darq:

use ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SPOILER TAGS, title spoilers aren't enough

If it says spoilers in the title and you don't want spoilers...

[jackflash3r]

There's another ending (bugged haha)! If you ask Gale to use his orb to blow up the netherbrain at the brain stalk and you pass the persuasion check he does!

However, the good ending plays out and Gale stands with your group on the pier. It's hilarious. He says his normal thing about wanting to rebuild the crown for Mystra and going for some ale. Immediately followed by Shadowheart saying: I can't believe Gale is gone.

Then the druid says he'll plant an entire forest in the wizards memory. I laughed quite a bit as he's standing right next to them.

[Marosh]

Publicado originalmente por Shadowblade:

I'm curious, you said you looked into it but was Divinity Original sin 2 like this as well? I played it well after the release of the definitive edition, so I wonder if they'll do the exact same thing with Baldur's gate 3

Depends. Sven from Larian Studio mentioned to move on from BG3 (second hand info). So that atleast doesn't sound like a divinitive edition to me. Bug Fixes for sure, but more? Who knows.

Second thing is the financial success. While they might love games, no one can work on an empty pocket at this scale. We can estimate the sales from the statisitic they published. For the cost, we only have rumors. If the rumors are remotly true (100mil+, I doubt it thou), then they will get off this project quite fast. Consols might fix the sales problem.

[Myr Superion]

Publicado originalmente por jackflash3r:

However, the good ending plays out and Gale stands with your group on the pier. It's hilarious. He says his normal thing about wanting to rebuild the crown for Mystra and going for some ale. Immediately followed by Shadowheart saying: I can't believe Gale is gone.

I can't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ breathe.

[Zero McDol]

Publicado originalmente por Darq:

use ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SPOILER TAGS, title spoilers aren't enough

Come on now.... There's an obvious choice to make that you seem to be missing....

[Shadowblade]

Publicado originalmente por Marosh:

Publicado originalmente por Shadowblade:

I'm curious, you said you looked into it but was Divinity Original sin 2 like this as well? I played it well after the release of the definitive edition, so I wonder if they'll do the exact same thing with Baldur's gate 3

Depends. Sven from Larian Studio mentioned to move on from BG3 (second hand info). So that atleast doesn't sound like a divinitive edition to me. Bug Fixes for sure, but more? Who knows.

Second thing is the financial success. While they might love games, no one can work on an empty pocket at this scale. We can estimate the sales from the statisitic they published. For the cost, we only have rumors. If the rumors are remotly true (100mil+, I doubt it thou), then they will get off this project quite fast. Consols might fix the sales problem.

Thats a damn ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shame. Now I gotta find some other game to fill this BG3 void in my heart.

[Nani!?!?]

Publicado originalmente por Marosh:

Publicado originalmente por Shadowblade:

I'm curious, you said you looked into it but was Divinity Original sin 2 like this as well? I played it well after the release of the definitive edition, so I wonder if they'll do the exact same thing with Baldur's gate 3

Depends. Sven from Larian Studio mentioned to move on from BG3 (second hand info). So that atleast doesn't sound like a divinitive edition to me. Bug Fixes for sure, but more? Who knows.

Second thing is the financial success. While they might love games, no one can work on an empty pocket at this scale. We can estimate the sales from the statisitic they published. For the cost, we only have rumors. If the rumors are remotly true (100mil+, I doubt it thou), then they will get off this project quite fast. Consols might fix the sales problem.

Larian continues the track record of abandoning games post release, we aren't even getting a definitive this time.