I’m sitting in the Circus of the End Times in Riventon, outside Baldur’s Gate. I’ve tricked the djinn into giving me his always-returning thunder spear, which should go to Karlach, who just wants to be useful and find a measure of revenge before her inevitable doom. Wyll is looking forward to saving his father, the Duke, from the clutches of the evil Lord Gortash and perhaps finding some redemption, though his devilish pact will always stand between them. Minthara wants nothing more than to see Orrin, devotee of the god of murder, die to her blade. And Isobel, fair Isobel, was saved and reunited with her angelic lover.
I missed so much of the story in my first playthrough, where I played cold with very little reading up on the quests and rolling back time with save scumming. I didn’t meet Wyll. When I finally met Karlach, she wanted me dead. I didn’t save Isobel, and so I had to kill her along with her father at the end of Act 2. I never met the spider matriarch. I didn’t have the mushroom guy fight for me. I didn’t set the duergar in Grymforge against each other. I never found Scratch. I never heard the owlbear cub beg for “More! MORE!” as I scratched her. I killed Minthara instead of recruiting her, so I never heard her story.
There are things I still haven’t done. I didn’t kill the Emperor when he revealed himself. It might have been nice to see where that led. And I have barely done anything in Act 3 — and I’m not sure I want to.
Aside from the stories I didn’t see because I didn’t have them in the group the first time through — Wyll and Karlach’s, mainly, although it might be nice to see Minthara’s revenge — I don’t think that I would play through Astarion or Shadowheart’s stories any differently. While it might be nice to ally with Gortash against Orin, I think that would cause some problems with Karlach and Wyll, so I would be more or less slotted into repeating my first run, where I killed Orrin, the Steel Watch, and then Gortash. I don’t want to set myself up for a third run.
Doing an evil run as the Dark Urge might be different enough to be worth it, especially since you don’t necessarily have to be evil. I’ve read a little about that journey and can see that Act 3 would be very different. But that’s in the future. I’ve played the game twice solo and am working through a multiplayer campaign, so… for me, it’s time to move on.
That said — this is an incredible game, probably the game of the year for me. If you haven’t played it and have any desire at all to give it a shot, then you should.
(In this second playthrough, I played primarily on Steam, since I had to purchase it again to go multiplayer with other Steam players. This allowed me to use mods, and I used those mods to let everyone participate in conversations so that I got all the special party dialog, and another mod to recruit both Minthara and Halsin).
Someday I will return to this game. Someday.