The new bad endings in Baldur’s Gate 3 finally allow me to have my dream romance

MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya was denied her dream romance in Baldur’s Gate 3 for a long time. This is now changing with the evil endings that came with patch 7.

At the beginning of September, Larian released the gigantic patch 7 for Baldur’s Gate 3. It brought an official mod system for the role-playing game and new evil endings with which you can now give a worthy end to a villainous run.

The other day I watched these bad endings all in a row on YouTube. The user Northalix published a compilation there that lasts about an hour and goes through every option that can be avoided in a bad story.

I threw the video on the TV, made myself comfortable, but jumped up with excitement when I finally saw my perfect ending!

“Happy ending” with Emperor and oppression of Faerûn

Back in February I wrote about how disappointing the romance with the Emperor is. I was particularly upset about the fact that the relationship can progress to the point where we have sex with the mind flayer, but then the rapprochement becomes null and void.

There were no consequences for me siding strongly with the Emperor, even though my companions do not trust him or even despise him. The whole thing felt more like a joke that you can sleep with the Tentacle Man and get the “Mind Blown” achievement straight away.

But with one of the new evil endings you can rule together with the Emperor! And not just through the city of Baldur’s Gate, but directly across all of Faerûn. The relationship that has been built is finally leading to something.

If one chooses an evil path, it is possible to become the absolute. Without going into too much detail, this quickly enables domination and control of Baldur’s Gate. You consciously decide to either enslave the population, oppress them or wipe them out.

One of the new evil endings leads you to place the Emperor on the Throne of the Absolute and thereby give him dominion and power. This is followed by another option in which you can decide to rule alongside the Emperor as his right hand. It wouldn’t have suited the Emperor to play second fiddle with his big ego.

And that’s everything I ever wanted for my perfect, romantic ending with the Emperor!

Well, that’s what you get in exchange for bringing a reign of terror over Faerûn. You oppress everything and everyone and murder to make your position clear.

This is what lies behind the Emperor: In the first two acts of the game we only encounter the Emperor as a dream guardian who protects us. In the third act we find out that this dream guardian is a mind flayer who wants to ally with us. Through him we and our companions are protected from the influence of the Absolute that wants to control us.

We learn that the mind flayer is the founder of Baldur’s Gate and was later kidnapped and turned into an illithid. However, he managed to free himself from the associated mind control of the Elder Brain and returned to Baldur’s Gate. There he ruled from the shadows, manipulated city politics, and later came under the Elder Brain’s control again before the events of the game.

Why do I think the Emperor is so terribly good?

He has these beautiful pink eyes and a deep, bass-heavy voice to die for. A few tentacles and rice teeth on the face don’t bother you.

However, his character stands out to me with every run. I wasn’t really interested in the romances, but rather in the backgrounds of our companions and how you can write their story.

Look into those pink eyes. Who can resist that?

But the romance with the Emperor caught me by surprise because it has a completely different dynamic than the rest. He manipulates every word to achieve his goals. It is not the “classic romance” and it remains confusing the whole time how the Emperor really feels about you.

Until the end, it’s unclear whether this is actually a romance between us or just a combination of two power-hungry lunatics.

I was definitely happy when I saw the new ending that allowed me to rule over Faerûn alongside the mind flayer. Where else can you do something like that?

Now the romance no longer feels like just a joke to me. It’s a good thing that I’m currently in the middle of an evil run in which I play as a Bard and a Dark Urge – a combination that I can only warmly recommend. In general, Dark Urge can make for an interesting story:

Player plays Baldur’s Gate 3 for 30 minutes, but then everyone disappeared or died – he only wanted to test one character

I’ll probably take the Emperor’s side again and do everything I can to become his right-hand man.

Then I finally reached my perfect ending in the game and in love.

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