Baldur's Gate 3 was our 2023 Game of the Year and highest-scoring review in over a decade and a half for a whole host of reasons, but its open-ended player freedom and attending reactivity to all of our potential choices is certainly up there. A year out from release, Proxy Gate Tactician on YouTube has uncovered a particularly absurd edge case reaction involving the Netherstones and late-game Iron Throne and Steel Watch Foundry dungeons.
The Netherstones are Baldur's Gate 3's Triforce-y magical McGuffin, and you need all three to progress to the end of the game. Larian's not in the business of restricting player control with unkillable NPCs or undroppable items, so you're free to take the stones in and out of your inventory. To avoid a potential soft lock on losing the stones forever, chucking them into a bottomless pit or something triggers a unique game over where the Absolute wins and you immediately turn into an Illithid.
But Proxy Gate Tactician wanted to see if there were any reactions to more specific ways of losing the stones, i.e. dropping them off in a dungeon you can only visit once in the entire game. The underwater Iron Throne, which you explore in a timed quest before it explodes, certainly fits the bill. Surprisingly, it's not an instant game over or soft lock if you leave the stones down there, and Larian actually built a mini quest that lets you find them again. They always show up back at the southeast docks of the Lower City, but the exact details change depending on your actions:
- By default, they're carried by one of the Sahuagin in the ambush that occurs in the area.
- Already killed them? No sweat, the delightfully-named fishmonger Old Troutman, who otherwise has no impact on the game, found the stones and will sell them for a song: three gold for Proxy Gate, and two for my high-Charisma Paladin
- And if you murdered dear Old Troutman like some kind of freak, you can find the stones in a dead fish washed up by the shore.
And that's not all: The game also has a unique response for if you drop the stones in the Steel Watch Foundry before blowing it up, a similarly ill-advised move that you'd only pull if you were trying to break the game. A gaggle of Kobolds spawns to the south of the burning factory, with one of them having looted your stones from the rubble. You have five turns to kill them once you trigger the encounter, or else you'll be hit with that unique "Lost the Netherstones" game over.
This is just a mind-boggling attention to detail, with praise not only due to Larian's designers, but also its quality assurance team for pushing the game to such borderline-trolling extremes. Proxy Gate Tactician was able to find a single Netherstone-related soft lock that Larian didn't account for though: the Chultan Jungle mini-dungeon unlocked by pissing off the Genie at the carnival in Rivington. You can never visit Dinosaur Peninsula again once you've left, and Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't trigger a game over or provide a way of getting the Netherstones back if you leave them down south.
Here's a few of my other favorite rare or "Wait, they anticipated I'd do this?" moments in Baldur's Gate 3:
- Set up a meet cute between a noir detective cat and a widow whose husband you blew up (nobody will miss the guy).
- Murder half-orc waiter Henk and you'll meet his brother, Honk, during Karlach's final romance scene.
- There are at least 24 ways for Shadowheart to force you into taking on the Astral Prism (BG3's other big McGuffin).
- Shadowheart has a second, hidden approval score for cult deprogramming purposes.
