Dishonored 3 would get me real hyped.
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The list seems way off. It has TES6 in 24, but last I heard the earliest will be 2026
I thought this too, then I remembered my gaming roots. Sure use a guide and google if you only intend to play through once. But thatâs not what Larian was going for.
The entire point is that you can complete the game literally however you want, and if it means skipping stuff, then so be it. Itâs about replayability. If you miss something in one playthrough, while it doesnât really affect the experience, it just means thereâs more to see the next time you play.
For example, you can literally beat the game in Act 2. Just have Gale blow up his orb and boom, youâre done. Faerun wins. Sure, you and all your friends die, but the goal was achieved: save the world from the big bad.
The way Larian has set this game up is to encourage multiple playthroughs. There are so many different ways you can do things. Iâve played through twice and there are things I see people talking about on the internet that Iâve never even seen. Now, where the devs can get in trouble with things like this, and Iâve seen it happen in BG3, is if a player takes a less traditional route through a quest, it can get buggy.
You can! But you also donât HAVE to, which is a perspective that most games and gamers nowadays donât really take. FOMO is real, but the way to see everything in a game like this is to play several times, not try to cram it all into one playthrough.
Underdark/Mountain Pass was fine, but what I am doing now is breaking the game narratively. Specifically,
when I talk to Balthazar heâs like âso Iâm working for Ketheric Thormâ and my character is like âsure, that guy, gotchaâ and I have absolutely no idea who that is. First I have heard of this dude existing. Also apparently Shadowheart was supposed to give me background that would enable me to figure out that Sharâs Gauntlet is going to progress the main story, but I didnât have her in my party when I entered the Shadowlands, so I just never got that. We had a conversation where she was like âyeah so you know how we talked about the shadow curse not applying to meâ and I was like âhuh?â because I had already dealt with the shadow curse before adding her to my party, so we never had that conversation.
Not seeing stuff at all is one thing, but on the thread I read people are saying they have quests like ârescue the Tiefling prisonersâ and if you complete Sharâs Gauntlet the game just fails you on that quest lol. Like sorry, bzzzt, you fail, because you are supposed to know (again, based on information I do not have) that you canât do those quests in that order. Sure, itâs ârealisticâ that you donât know what the consequences of your actions will be, but that makes it kind of hard to roleplay. This is why RPGs normally make it clear what does and doesnât progress the main story, rather than have cryptic warnings which are inconsistent in their effect. Like when you go to enter the Mountain Pass the game warns you to tie up loose ends even though you actually donât have to, to my knowledge. But then at Sharâs Gauntlet it says âwarning, this might permanently change this areaâ and what it means by that is that itâs going to hard-fail you on a bunch of quests if you proceed.
Game is more or less designed around assuming players are going to be pounding the reload save button. Actions that take a min roll of 2-5 can completely screw your entire save in different ways if you fail and donât save scum.
Regardless the narrative flow in general fits together pretty good on the good path. On my durge playthrough it doesnât make a lot of sense beyond âtadpole badâ though.
so youâre roleplaying someone who barrels through as fast as possible, thatâs a legit way to play. But if you do that you have to concede that youâre gonna miss things. I am not sure why they put that warning at the start of the mountain pass, I agree with you there. Basically, my path thru the game took me there, I went in and got roflstomped by some undead guys, realized that I probably needed to gain a level, so i went back to the Underdark to do that, which is how I discovered that you could do both.3
Rewards go to the explorer gamer type in this game. Not all games are like that, I understand. But in a game like this, literally exploring everything you can before stepping into the pool with a giant warning that says âthings will be locked out after this!!â Is what gets you the most content.
Finally, it seems like the easiest idea EVER to take the CLERIC OF SHAR into SHARâS Gauntlet, but then again, I am a 30-year veteran of this type of RPG, so that sort of thing raises flags in my mind that I should probably take a certain person with me. Should they put a dialogue or something that strongly suggests bringing shadowheart with you for that bit? Maybe? I donât know.
One thing about your issue that could be a root cause is that it seems like games nowadays are designed with the idea that everyoneâs gonna just look stuff up on Google or Reddit anyway, so thereâs no need to handhold. I disagree, as evidenced by your experience. Not saying you need handholding in a âmake the game linear as fuckâ kind of way, but the aforementioned character being somewhat vital to a section of the game might require some guidance in that direction. Some games require you to have the companion with you in order to go to certain areas, which seems like a decent compromise.
Huh? Itâs the fact that I went exploring that is causing the problem here.
My main quest is at the point of âtalk to the Harpers at the Last Light Innâ. How this is supposed to go is that I talk to them, they tell me a bit about this Ketheric Thorm guy, then I go infiltrate Moonrise Towers and find Thorm and Zârell, he tells me about this relic that makes Thorm invulnerable to damage, then I go to the Gauntlet of Shar and I have all the context I need.
Instead of this, I went off exploring, found the Gauntlet of Shar, and to me it just looked like Shadowheartâs side quest (and I did have her in my party when I entered there, just not when I entered the Shadowlands). I had no idea I had rejoined the main story at a later point. And the game made no concessions to this, when I meet Balthazar it doesnât explain who Thorm is or what this relic is, it just proceeds as if I know this stuff.
I shared chrisVâs frustrations for a while. It was also similar to frustrations of mine in divinity 2.
I have an excruciating min-maxed on every tiny decision play through til the start of act 3 and itâs exhausting and not fun. there are way too many ways for the story to play out that I think itâd be very difficult to play through the same path twice unless you were speedrunning.
All I can say is youâll drive yourself mad if you try to go down every possible branch or path. just take what comes, the game was definitely designed to be replayed, because the actual story is not really that long.
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Glad I decide to do Mountain Pass because I enjoyed finding Lathanderâs Blood
This Inquisitor guy is annoying though
Act II: Last Light Inn seems like a cool place to chill with lots of friendly NPCs
10 minutes later: WTF!
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Related to the discussion that ChrisV and Skydiver were having:
I just completed the Gauntlet of Shar and freed the Nightsong before going to Moonrise Towers. It didnât seem out of order to me since I loot almost everything and read all the books I find, which gave me a fair bit of lore about Thorm. Plus Iâm pretty sure the main NPC at the Inn sets him up as a big bad.
This is my main complaint 50 hours in. Enjoying it, but the UI for moving the view is not great. I may be ignorant of some controls, but it can get frustrating and claustrophobic.
No, I am not trying to click on the door to close it, I want to move though it. Please stop sele - no I did not mean to click on Gale - Hello friend, do you know of the weave? - Yes Gale, we have already discussed it in detail.
Why is this building three levels?
Pretty fun other than that.
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They broke moving through doors in the patch from a few days ago Iâm sure theyâll fix. I can move camera pretty well with WASD + middle mouse + click to move somewhere then F1 to snap back to main char, its fine. A little irritating you canât move the Y axis at all but thatâd just make things worse probablyâŚ
I would love to read some behind the scenes or something about this game, its pretty unusual. I played DOS2 and enjoyed it and heard about BG3 EA and was like oh Iâm sure it will be pretty fun when it full releases but absolutely didnât expect something this good and no one else did. How does a game in EA for 2 years surprise everyone?
Gale: Weâre not close, you and I
Galeâs approval of my character: exceptional
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you canât save the prisoners in Moonrise if you go to the nightsong first. Thatâs why thereâs a big warning before you step into that water.
So the way to do it is save the prisoners, go to Nightsong, then kill Thorm. If you try to kill Thorm before killing/releasing Nightsong, heâll just laugh and port away
You win some, you lose some I guess. I donât expect to complete every quest in a game like this unless Iâm following a guide. I had done everything in Act II that wasnât at Moonrise Towers before going into the Shadowfell. I had already figured out the Nightsong was key to fighting Thorm so it seemed like a good idea to get her first before trying to take on his base. I eventually did find the prisoners, but they werenât in great shape. The game logic here isnât 100% consistent because there are a couple quests related to Moonrise (Zevlor and the Duke) that you canât progress until after fighting Thorm. But again, not a big deal. The thing in Act II that is more potentially game breaking here is talking to Isobel early and failing to save her from getting kidnapped. Thereâs not a lot of warning there and itâs easy to be taken off guard.
Romancing Shadowheart is like trying to get with that super religious girl in high school. Meanwhile half of my other companions have straight up propositioned me apropos of nothing.
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Oh yeah yeah, sure Shadowheart, secrets are good, losing your memory is great, all hail satan and all that. Want to come back to my room and I can show you my secrets cabinet?