When Baldur's Gate 3 launched earlier this month, it earned near universal praise for its gameplay, characters, and apparently infinite choices. Since then, many have been taking it slow through the first two acts to discover everything hidden across the continent of Faerûn.
However, as players reach act 3, many are discovering that it's... a touch less polished than the first two acts.
Warning: Many of the threads linked contain heavy spoilers for act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3. Click through at your own risk.
On the Baldur's Gate 3 subreddit, a number of users have chimed in to express frustration at act 3 for being buggy, laggy, and in some cases, seemingly unfinished. For instance, u/rejian called out that they had 11 quests in their journal in act 3, six of which were impossible to complete due to bugs. u/meramipopper had a similar experience. Others, such as u/justchiller and u/IceyCoolRunnings brought up serious performance issues.
Still others, including u/CynicalSigtyr and u/paradox-paradise called out a number of quests that seem inconsequential or even unfinished once they reached Baldur's Gate 3. While you could chalk that up to someone not liking the story, users including u/noobiestboob have noted large amounts of cut act 3 content still present in the game's files, especially pertaining to Minthara and Karlach.
People don't want to admit it because it's a great game but I'll take one for the team and tell the truth:
— Noir 浮世 (@madcap412) August 24, 2023
Baldur's Gate III has bugs...and it gets especially buggy in Act 3
Go ahead, roast me all you want. My work is done
Minthara in particular has drawn attention from fans in the wake of Larian's big patch. While many players probably killed the villainous drow in the goblin encampment without a second thought, it is possible to recruit her into your party. Some have done so in the hopes of fixing their problematic fave. But fans who have made it to act 3 have noticed that Minthara's quests and dialogue are a little thin.
"People say she was supposed to get fixed in this patch, but she still feels buggy. If I’m being honest, I don’t think they planned her out at all, I think so much has been cut and overall she is just a missed opportunity. She is vacant in all of act 3 and act 2, just not well done in the least," one fan wrote.
"Minthara is, quite surprisingly, an incredibly layered character for someone that dies in 90% of runs. It's just unfortunate that her character progression doesn't go that far, because despite her straight-shooter attitude she is extremely nuanced. What could have been...," another fan lamented.
IGN has reached out to Larian Studios for a roadmap for potential future fixes as well as comment on updating characters such as Minthara.
Baldur's Gate 3's act 3 feels far from finished
While we won't go into specifics of their story complaints here to avoid spoilers, suffice it to say the general community vibe is that the story in act 3 feels a lot less complete than it does in the previous two acts. Many speculate that it's the result of it being the farthest bit of story from the well-tested early access content of act 1.
But wait, you may say, there's been a recent patch that's surely fixed all of this, right? Unfortunately, it seems like Baldur's Gate 3's most recent patch did not solve these problems — at least not broadly enough for users to stop being frustrated. Multiple threads in just the last 24 hours indicate that act 3 is still a mess even with the fixes, and for most of the same reasons.
Much of the community is sympathetic to the issues. Baldur's Gate 3 is enormous, after all, and making enough content to fill all the choice possibilities is a herculean task on its own. But many remain frustrated given how much it contrasts with the excellence of the first part of the game.
The issues with act 3 haven't hampered everyone's enjoyment. For instance, our reviewer specifically called out the act 3 performance issues, but felt they were trivial compared to the overall quality of the rest of the game. But others are having a much rougher time, especially on weaker PC hardware.
And for everyone else who hasn't reached act 3 yet (guilty!), it may be a good idea to slow down your playthroughs in hopes that a future patch — or even one of the console releases — tidies up the game's climactic finale.
Larian Studios has committed to working on improving the game's issues, and promised a second patch "right around the corner" that "will feature significant performance improvements." Larian has also said it will not start working on expansion content until after it's done with major patches.
In the meantime, Baldur's Gate 3 is slated to release on PS5 on September 6, with the Xbox Series X|S set for sometime later this year. And if Minthara isn't working out for you, you can find our list of the most rewarding romances in Baldur's Gate 3 right here.
Additional reporting by Kate Bailey.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
