Baldur’s Gate 3 is such a detailed RPG that dedicated players are still finding the last-ditch scenarios that Larian added to ensure it could never totally break apart, ranging from resurrected zombie tieflings to yet more endings that are almost impossible to see.
YouTuber SlimX (via PC Gamer) has been breaking down some of Baldur’s Gate 3’s biggest secrets. One of these revolves around the game’s squad of tiefling refugees. Assuming you don’t raze the grove to the ground in pursuit of a Minthara smooch, these characters can show up throughout the game – providing you keep them alive.
Except, as it turns out, perhaps you don’t actually need to keep them alive. SlimX discovered that if you pull off a specific set of activities – save the tieflings in Act 1, leave the prisoners in Act 2, give Balthazar the Nightsong, and then refuse to fight the resulting zombie tieflings in the Mindflayer Colony – those same zombie tieflings will show up in Baldur’s Gate. What’s more, they’ll be standing in the exact same place as they would if you’d saved them, and they’ll be acting as if they aren’t thoroughly (un) dead.
Elsewhere, SlimX discovered another of Larian’s hidden “endings.” There are Game Over screens scattered throughout Baldur’s Gate 3, ranging from the ridiculous (losing your saving roll against that dying Mindflayer in the wreckage of the Nautiloid) to the efficient (Gale blowing himself up in Act 2).
One particular ending, however, is one you should never get to see. Normally, if you try to enter the Upper City before the climax of Act 3, the Netherbrain will rebuff you with a series of stuns, which can only be ignored by rolling a natural 20 on a saving throw. That’s simple enough, but the brain will throw out these stuns every few seconds, meaning you’d have to roll nat 20 after nat 20 in order to get through the gate.
As SlimX approaches the gate in their video, they use some weighted dice to pass at least six saves in a row. The odds of that happening are around 1-in-64 million, but even if you were to somehow beat those odds, you’d immediately find yourself dominated by the brain, because you’d be lacking the Netherstones you need to resist it. It’s similar to the ending you get if you manage to irreversibly throw those stones away – something Larian tried extremely hard to prevent, but which one dedicated Baldur’s Gate 3 player spent 1,400 hours trying to make happen.
SlimX’s video is a treasure trove of cut content, dev tricks, and more that shows you just how much work goes into making sure a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 actually works. Helpfully split into three acts plus an entire section dedicated to endgame cutscenes, you’re sure to find something new if you check the whole thing out.
