The point of no return is a common idea in video games. Usually it's the point right before the last mission. It asks you to tie up all your loose ends, because you're about to get on a one-way train to the end credits. Sometimes, the point of no return is a firm ending - once you pass it, you beat the next sequence and the game is over. At other times, it's more like a portal to the ending - in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk 2077, once you finish the main game, you’re transported back to before the point of no return so you can still wander the city as you left it. But 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3 has far too ꦺmany, far too soܫon, and now I feel a little stuck.
It starts as early as Act 1. Once you sweep up whatever quests you have in the game’s opening 15 to 20 hours (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:don't miss the hag!), you have two choices. You can either go into the Underdark through its various entrances, or you can head to the Mountain Pass following Lae'zel's githyanki quest. The Underdark seemed more 'final', so I tried the Mountain Pass, but was told I was under-levelled, so the Underdark it was. Down here I made my way through each quest and it all seemed very linear, I unlocked an elevator to my next location, so on I went.
In this new and shadowy place, I met the Harpers and their quest was up and running. The Mountain Pass was back on my map, presumably that meant entering via the exit and working my way back to the original entrance in Act 1, but everything seemed to be moving with momentum. All my other side quests, like Karlach's iron, linked to the stuff I was doing to the Harpers, and this is where the trouble with the point of no return comes in.
There are a few Act 1 quests you have already lost at this point, as entering either the Underdark or the Mountain pass means some of the early quests automatically fail, or become unavailable if you haven't discovered them. But these are more like timed quests, so that's a natural extension of the game's reality. You can still physically return to Act 1's map, and many quests remain open or waiting to be discovered.
However, when you do the Gauntlet of Shar, you're closing the world behind. I'm already not jazzed about this quest 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:thanks to the Umbral Gems, but now I feel like my first run of the game is a little tainted. As I said, when you follow the quests from the Harpers, everything seems to flow in a line. There are still breaks where you move from one lair to the next where you can decide to do something else, but logically it's fairly clear what you would do next. But as you head into the showdown at the Gauntlet of Shar, you are told the world state will change as a result. Given that the map is covered in a noxious fog and the whole quest is built around this issue, I assumed this meant the fog would either clear or permanently remain depending on my choices.
However, what it actually means is this is another, much harder, point of no return. From here you cannot leave the map, so everything in Act 1 is permanently closed off. The remaining quests that I had in Act 2 appear to have disappeared, and I cannot go to the Mountain Pass so that thread of Lae'zel's quest has been severed. There's still a way to complete it, but I feel like I've missed a major chunk of the storyline from one of my favourite characters, and after first being told I was too weak to do it, then being caught out by it being closed off, I feel a little hard done to.
I'm also struggling to figure out Halsin's deal. Ol' bear boy has been with me since about four hours in, and he's done nothing besides turn down a drink at a celebration and tell me he's comfortable in camp. Aye, I bet he is, I'm out here fighting golems and goblins while he's getting toasty by the fire. In Act 2 I mumbled a name to him and he took off at once for the Last Light Inn, but he's not there anymore. Is he dead? I'm not going to look it up because I don't want spoilers to impact my decisions - which is also why I didn't know this was a point of no return - but I'm pretty sure he's dead. He’ll be, well, not missed. But he won’t be there.
At this point, I haven't even fully finished Act 2 because there's still the small matter of the actual boss to take on, and I can't go back to the Act 1 map at all, or even into the elevator back to the Underdark or the Mountain Pass. Not only do I need to defeat the Act 2 boss still, but then there's the whole of Act 3 itself. This is not a sensible point of no return for such a hard lock. Having to take on the boss immediately after the Gauntlet rather than more frivolous expeditions? Sure. But since they remain locked after, it means that before I even reach the Act 2 boss I am stuck with where I'm at.
This wouldn't be such a problem if not for the fact that, after I defeated the boss and went off to start Act 3 at the titular Baldur's Gate, I was once more told I was too weak for this area. However, since there were no other quests to clean up and no alternate, Underdark-style route, that meant I had to grin and bear it. Hopefully, I'm able to struggle through and earn some big XP quickly, because I'd hate for this to be a point of no return for me giving up and never coming back.