While many RPG fans have their sights firmly set on the release of Starfield in September, Baldur’s Gate 3 has also been earning a lot of attention ahead of its full release this week.
Promising plenty of cool quests and battles, the game, which has been in early access since late 2020, is bound to attract a legion of loyal PC players upon arrival.
With a wide range of races and classes to choose between, these would-be adventurers will be facing some tough decisions when putting together the ideal build for their first playthrough. Unfortunately for those struggling to finalise their plans, Larian has just added another variable to the mix.
Are you planning on embracing the dangerous power of Baldur’s Gate 3’s mind flayers?
As revealed in a launch week community update, the mind flayers first mentioned around the launch of the game’s early access version serve not only as a “central pillar” in its story, but will also present players with a key role-playing decision.
By finding and consuming these parasites, players can work their way up through a hidden skill tree consisting of 25 Illithid powers, which can give you the ability to do things like influence characters to say certain things in dialogue or manipulate their bodies like ragdolls during combat.
Naturally, the pursuit of this dark power comes with some negative consequences, which the developer has largely left players to discover for themselves when they jump into the game on August 3.
Players on the game’s subreddit seem pretty divided between these two paths, with posts having sprung up espousing both the power-hungry point of view and the anti-Illithid stance.
It seems that the former camp consists mainly of those planning to play as a warlock either right away or in a later playthrough, such as user Fontiii4, who revealed that their philosophy will be: “If I sell my soul to everyone, then it will be a fun showdown at the end to see who claims it.”
On the other hand, user SnarkyRogue summed up the Illithid temperance movement’s ethos by declaring: “The idea of my skull becoming an aquarium for eldritch horrors is a bit much for me.”
Neither side looks like they’ll be going into the game without concerns, with some who plan to resist hoping that they’ll be rewarded for their efforts and others praying they can find a happy Partial-Illithid medium.
Regardless of whether you’re planning to embrace the mind flayer madness in Baldur’s Gate 3, make sure to follow us for guides to its quests, mechanics and mods.