Summary
- Baldur's Gate 3's fifth major patch adds an all-new epilogue with over 3,000 lines of added dialogue, providing additional closure to companions and major characters.
- The epilogue takes place six months after the final battle and allows players to catch up with party and important side characters, with conversations changing based on prior decisions made throughout the game.
- The epilogue can vary greatly depending on choices made, including different endings for Karlach and the potential for a mindless murderer character, offering post-game dialogue, letters, and updates on other character's stories.
Although Game of the Year awards, one of the game's few notable weak points on release was its lackluster ending. After the final battle, each companion simply received a few short lines of dialogue, with many story-relevant characters not featured in the ending at all, and the game would come to a somewhat abrupt end. As of the game's fifth major patch, however, Baldur's Gate 3 has received an all-new epilogue, promising additional closure to the stories of companions and other major characters.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3.]
For many players, Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 is where the game's quality can start to drop off to varying degrees, with some performance problems, unsatisfactory conclusions, and noticeable holes left by cut content, making some parts of the later sections feel less cohesive than the first two acts. In particular, the game's ending was considered unsatisfying — it took place immediately after the final battle and mostly amounted to each companion giving a few short lines of dialogue or quickly resolving remaining plot points, with additional scenes for romanced companions and small teasers during the credits.
Baldur's Gate 3's Patch #5 Adds A New Epilogue
As of the game's fifth major patch, however, an entirely new epilogue has been added after the final battle, with upwards of 3,000 lines of added dialogue. The epilogue sees Tav gathering with their companions back at a camp at High Hall, allowing individual conversations with party and certain side characters. How each character behaves, what each conversation is about, or even whether certain characters appear at all will depend greatly on prior decisions made throughout the game — especially how each party member's personal quest was completed.
BG3's Epilogue Is Six Months After The Final Battle
Available for any ending after defeating the Netherbrain (except for choosing to take it over at the end completely), the epilogue takes the form of a party six months after the battle, put together by Withers, where Tav gets the opportunity to "catch up" with most of the characters that would have occupied the camp at various points in the game. This includes most party left alive by the end of the story, as well as a few extra characters such as Volo, the owlbear cub (now no longer a cub), and Scratch the dog, if they were optionally saved or taken in during the playthrough.
In any ending where the player chooses to take full control of the Netherbrain and take over the world for themselves (or for Bhaal), the epilogue will not be available.
Importantly, each conversation with a companion will change drastically depending on certain choices made throughout the story, particularly those pertaining to their personal quests. Astarion, for example, will have different dialogue depending on whether he was allowed to ascend in Cazador's mansion, and similarly, Shadowheart's dialogue will change depending on how Nightsong was handled in Act 2, or how her Act 3 quest concluded. Additionally, while certain characters won't appear physically during the epilogue, a number of letters from various characters are available for reading.
Of particular interest to many players, however, will be Karlach's potential endings in BG3 — as the party member with the most variance in of different endings, Karlach's epilogue appearance is similarly varied, depending on how her story ended. If she didn't return to Avernus, or returned alone, she won't be present in the epilogue at all, with only a letter from Dammon referring to her fate. However, if she was turned into a mind flayer or went into Avernus with Wyll or a player character, she will appear again in the epilogue, hinting at a potential solution to her infernal engine problems.
The Epilogue Of BG3 Can Change Entirely With Certain Choices
Aside from speaking to companions in person or reading letters from various minor characters like Alfira and Dammon, the new epilogue for Baldur's Gate 3 also includes an edition of the Baldur's Mouth Gazette, which can be read for some more updates on other characters' postgame stories. Aylin and Isobel, for example, can be read about, provided that Nightsong was freed and they both lived until the end of the game, and the stories in the Gazette will also change to reflect how certain other side quests turned out during a playthrough.
While the main purpose of the epilogue in most playthroughs will be to provide post-game dialogue with party and companions, there are also some variations of the scene for other types of endings. A Dark Urge character who either accepted Bhaal's gift or lost the duel with Orin in the third act will not attend the party as normal but will get a short scene showing their fate after the defeat of the Netherbrain, watching the party from afar, now a mostly mindless murderer.
In a similar vein, if the player character became a full mind flayer towards the end of the game, they will have to make checks not to attempt to attack the other characters present during the epilogue — failing the checks and attacking will have Withers expel the player character from the party in a short cutscene. Similarly, if the player attacks other characters at the party in any way, the same cutscene will play out, and the epilogue will end early. Notably, there are scrolls of Disintegrate and Circle of Death lying on a table in the camp — attempting to steal them will also lead to the early end.
Months after the game's initial launch, Baldur's Gate 3's fifth major patch has finally fixed one of the game's most notable issues. The epilogue ties up a variety of loose ends in ways that reflect the choices made throughout an entire playthrough, offering closure to several hanging plot threads and some light teasers of what might come next for the Baldur's Gate franchise. Depending on how one progresses through the game, the epilogue can be a welcome touch to cap off the long journey. Although Baldur's Gate 3 is likely to receive more updates in the future, the game now has one of the things it was missing most.
