MeinMMO-Demon Cortyn has to say a few negative words about Baldur’s Gate 3. Because the density of bugs towards the end clouds the otherwise great role-playing game.
Like most of you, I love Baldur’s Gate 3. I have now spent over 200 hours on it, playing 3 playthroughs with different groups in parallel, and haven’t started any other game in the meantime.
In my “main save”, we have been in Act 3 for a few days now and have arrived in the city of Baldur’s Gate. The city is impressive, and there is really a lot to do – but unfortunately, the density of bugs has also massively increased here.
I want to talk a little about the downsides of Baldur’s Gate 3 in this article. Because there are bugs, and some of them are really “game-breaking”, while others are extremely frustrating because they involve important and beloved characters. So, here’s a spoiler warning.
Spoiler Warning: This article covers all 3 acts of Baldur’s Gate 3. Even though major story spoilers are avoided, some things need to be described in more detail. You have been warned.
The first really annoying and “game-breaking” bug we encountered was already in Act 2. Early on, the goal is to obtain a moon lantern to avoid being affected by the mysterious shadow curse. Due to the story decisions made, we can only get such a lantern by ambushing an enemy escort and taking the moon lantern from their leader.
That’s exactly what we do. We win the battle, loot the lantern, and all the NPCs congratulate us on this heroic achievement.
There’s just one problem: Instead of getting the working moon lantern in our inventory, we receive 2 broken lanterns instead – the working one is simply gone.
At that point, the game was no longer playable. We could not advance the story, as there was no way to obtain another such lantern. So we had to load an old save and repeat everything – only to be disappointed again.
Only after we made some different decisions on the fourth attempt did we finally get the coveted lantern. The constant “reloading and trying again” had thrown us quite out of immersion – especially since we now had to make an atypical decision to proceed.
In Baldur’s Gate, we learn that our hero group is supposed to be the top topic in a newspaper article that discredits us. We naturally want to prevent this and go to said editorial office to talk to the boss. Using “persuasion”, we get him to let us read the article in advance. At least we thought so, but in the middle of the dialogue, it abruptly ends, a new scene begins, the boss calls the guards and throws us out. A little taken aback, we now stand in front of the door, and everyone is angry with us. Without any apparent reason.
Next scene. For one of our friends in the camp, we are to storm a wizard’s tower and eliminate the wizard living there. So we pay a visit to the wizard, and there is a battle. Our “client” is also present in this fight and is supposed to be the “stress factor” of the battle – one is supposed to prevent him from dying.
But that is quite easy, as our companion simply stands around apathetically, neither intervening in the fight nor being attackable.
Worse yet: after winning the battle, he continues to stand frozen, no longer speaks to us, and does not return to the camp. A quest has simply ended “in nothing” – this is ultra-frustrating because it was also a very important character.
Dialogue bugs lead to a break in immersion
But even the “smaller” bugs are increasing towards the end. Especially in the dialogue system, which is so crucial for shaping the “own story,” there are devastating errors.
It is very often the case that as a possible dialogue response, you only see “1. Continue”, even though you actually have 3–7 different response options. The other player can also see all responses while listening – but the currently active player can only select “Continue”, which ultimately results in the selection of “response 1” – no matter which it may be. This has caused us to betray several characters to whom we had actually sworn loyalty – simply because the currently active player can only give the 1st response.
If a devil or an incubus is asking me what exactly he can do for me or what deal I want to make, and I am forced to choose “response 1” because no other options are displayed to me, then that makes me really dissatisfied.
The other extreme is that we suddenly have dialogue options that we cannot explain at all. Our characters suddenly become super Sherlocks, revealing a villain’s nefarious deeds in great detail because we supposedly talked to someone or read some book – even though we are quite sure that neither was the case.
To this, add a few “report to XYZ” quests that simply do not count as completed and now clutter the quest log, even though we have clearly completed the missions.
More bugs if you are evil
Even in my second save, where I play a much more evil character and – as much as possible – ingratiate myself with the Cult of the Absolute, errors occur. This “evil” run has been incredibly cool so far and has many scenes that I never had during my first playthrough, but at the same time, choosing evil options has significantly increased the density of errors and inconsistencies.
Example: I joined Minthara and her goblins and attacked the Emerald Grove. The goblins then come into my camp, we throw a wild party and worship the Absolute while Minthara – well – claims my body for herself. So far, so cool.
The next morning, however, my quest log for “Find a Cure” changes – I can no longer talk to the goblin priestess because I am supposedly branded as an “enemy of the Absolute”. But I was not.
My personal annoying bug is Lae’zel. The (already annoying) companion wanted to secretly attack me one night, and instead of de-escalating like during the first playthrough, I thought: “Yeah, then I’ll just kill you. You’re just a pain in my ass.”
And that’s exactly what I did. Unfortunately, she didn’t care.
Now Lae’zel, even though she is supposedly murdered according to the quest log, continues to stand as a “yellow” NPC in the camp or follows me around. She is no longer attackable, and although she should have exited the story, she still makes stupid comments during camp conversations.
Only when a scene between Shadowheart and Lae’zel plays out a few nights later does she finally die for real. Thank you, Shadowheart. I may not like you either, but you did me a favor.
Waiting is worth it because the bugs are really annoying
I am sure these errors will be fixed in the coming weeks and months. And I also see that a game with so many interconnections and entanglements can have a few minor bugs at launch – but especially towards the end, the bugs are really annoying. This is not “complaining at a high level”, but errors that massively spoil the fun and immersion of the game.
So if someone recommends that you don’t finish Baldur’s Gate 3 – there are very good reasons for that. Even though I fear that a single patch cannot fix all the errors.
Baldur’s Gate 3 remains an extremely good game, but some errors do significantly spoil the fun. It is a pity that the last act has so many bugs, as they constantly pull us out of the otherwise cool story.
In the end, we have to think more about how to dance around the bugs, instead of simply being able to follow the climax of the grand storyline – and that’s a shame. Very unfortunate.
