If you’re like me, you greeted the news of Baldur’s Gate 3’s expanded evil endings in the mammoth Patch 7 with, “Oh, that sounds interesting, but there’s no way I can unlock them.” Luckily for us pliable RPG players, these bad boys are on YouTube in all their glory and are definitely worth checking out—if only to add some weight to your “canon” glad ending. The following contains spoilers for the recent endings in Patch 7.
At the end of the game, you have a basic binary choice where you either destroy or enslave the mind flayer, the super brain Absolute, recent final versions everything flows from this last choice. They are ton in the different ways this can play out, with your character getting the ending as a mind flayer or not, and with or without the Emperor’s support. If the Emperor is still around, you have the choice of playing second fiddle or betraying him at the last minute by taking control, like in the other bad endings.
One thing that surprised me was the ability to transform into an illithid against your will after taking control of the Absolute. You have to pass a Constitution test based on the number of mind-eater tadpoles you’ve eaten during the game. If you fail, you undergo a graphical ceremorphosis and get a unique ending where the illithid’s “Grand Plan” begins.
If you do pass that check, you get a fun little “exercise your will” option, directing the newly enslaved people of Baldur’s Gate towards a selection of bad guy actions, with a unique cutscene for each. The bad guy scenes include:
- I send my cultists to conquer.
- Build a giant statue of your avatar as the “hero of the world.”
- Killing everyone in and around Baldur’s Gate.
- Driving everyone crazy, Kingsman style.
- Unique option for each original character (Wyll, Gale, etc.)
That last option is particularly ailing, and was clearly not available during Patch 7’s extensive playtesting. Each origin ending feels like a believable, satisfying conclusion to that character’s storyline — no miniature feat considering BG3’s cast. Karlachnow preserved by the magic of the Absolute, rips out her unreliable machine heart before unleashing the fiends upon the city. Lae’zel begins her war with Vlaakith, empowered by an older brain, while Astarion declares himself “sun god“loved by all.
The most elaborate, unique ending belongs to the configurable one Dark desire. If you’re a good little murder lord blessed by Bhaal, taking control of the Absolute leads to a special cutscene where Durge uses his power to kill everyone in the city, starting with his beloved. They’re then given a vision of the dead world they’ll eventually create, where they’re the last living thing in a lake of corpses under a darkened sun.
![[SPOILER] New Bad Ending Dark Urge. Patch 7. Baldur's Gate 3 - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/-r9TfQyTO-0/maxresdefault.jpg)
It feels like a fitting send-off for Baldur’s Gate 3, even if Larian has a few smaller updates planned. The game’s less popular bad endings have been given high-quality cinematics that skillfully untangle the proliferation of different options and possible variations, and I have to imagine that these recent endings are at least as much of a match for the happy-ending epilogue party in terms of effort and expense. The fact that Larian went to such lengths with endings that only a minority of players chose is another impressive example of the studio’s craftsmanship, capping off the entire game’s “I can’t believe there’s a special cinematic for this crazy, extreme choice I made” moment.
Even if you never pursue these recent endings in your own save, they add real depth and stakes to the story. The feel-good party at the end of a good guy’s playthrough feels really hard-won when there are such shocking and gruesome alternatives to contrast with, and the fact that other people’s experiences with BG3 may be very different to mine adds a real richness to a game that already has so many other merits.
