Baldur’s Gate 3 was an overnight sensation after it proved in reviews that it would be standing as one of the big GOTY contenders of 2023. However, a lot of that mystique has washed away in recent weeks, and as one might say, the chickens have come home to roost.
Not that Larian Studios did anything bad with Baldur’s Gate 3 exactly, but more and more fans are learning that the reviews did not quite paint a full picture of the game. The way it had worked out is, Baldur’s Gate 3 launched on Steam Early Access three years ago, and received a lot of updates and changes within that time.
However, those changes and refinements mainly applied to Chapters 1 and 2 of Baldur’s Gate 3, which is what they have been working on for the better part of those three years. The very latest Chapter 3 didn’t get as much TLC yet, to be basically be perfect.
That’s where the new controversy surrounding Baldur’s Gate 3 comes from. We should note that reviewers also played through that section, and still gave it those glowing review scores. They believed that Larian had done such a good job that they could excuse the state of Chapter 3. But it seems fans are losing patience with Larian today.
The complaints aren’t entirely logical, however. A narrative has come about that Larian had ‘cut content’ from Baldur’s Gate 3, as dataminers found elements that do not appear in the final product.
As reported by Dexerto, Larian addressed these concerns with a new community update, which also lays out the roadmap for the next few months. The studio has a 2nd patch on the way, that will address many of these concerns.
Now, the ‘cut content’ narrative had grown to include issues that Larian had pointed out were actually bugs, and that they will be fixing shortly. They identified one such bug, that failed to trigger other events because of Minthara’s inactivity.
They also addressed the unsatisfactory ending to Karlach’s ending. That, and many other story elements, are to be fixed with the 2nd patch.
The big issue is the epilogue, that Larian acknowledges was originally planned to be used. However, Larian disputes referring to it as ‘cut content.’ In fact, they decided that that epilogue is unsatisfactory. And so they did ditch it, and have been working on better epilogues for the main story and every character. That is also coming in the 2nd patch, and will progressively be addressed in later updates.
So it seems, Baldur’s Gate 3’s GOTY worthiness may actually be on the ropes at the moment. While reviewers may not change their reviews because of Larian’s failure to complete Chapter 3, it may affect its contention in upcoming awards events for this year. But we won’t dismiss their chances here, and wish Larian good luck in getting their game in complete order sooner rather than later.
