There's been plenty of discussion about the range of choice in Baldur's Gate 3, and plenty more about the strength of the game's 'evil' playthrough. But even after spending hundreds of hours with the game, I wasn't ready for some of what came up when players started to debate the game's "most evil" decisions.
This article contains spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3.
In a post of Reddit, one player highlighted their pick, suggesting that giving Aylin up to Lorroakan during Act 3 is far worse than just letting Shadowheart kill her in the Gauntlet of Shar: "you liberate her, reunite her with Isobel, only to rip it all away and put her in a cage again. And all for what? Some coin?"
It's certainly a morally dubious choice, but it didn't take long for the Dark Urge players to show up. Two players outlined the kind of nonsense you can get up to if you resist the urge while bringing Jaheira to your side, before violently betraying her (and most likely Minsc, too) at Bhaal's shrine.
Most evil choice of the game? from r/BaldursGate3
Alternatively, there's plenty of Shadowheart shenanigans to get up to as well. You can betray God's Favorite Princess to Vicinia in the House of Loss, giving up a character you've likely spent dozens of hours adventuring with, to give her up for basically nothing. Alternatively, you can help her rescue her parents, only to dispatch them afterwards. At this point, we're starting to get into 'pointlessly evil' territory, as while Larian has, of course, shaped a cutscene for that betrayal, you're not really benefiting the story with that kind of callousness.
What strikes me, is that in among all of these somewhat horrifying deep-dives into the depths of Larian's psyche, several players express genuine regret for the decisions they've made. It's testament to the writing that some of these choices are so gut-wrenching that many players talk about immediately walking them back. And while that's an alarming thing to realise ahead of my own Dark Urge run, it's a sign of just how deep this adventure goes.
Elsewhere, Baldur's Gate 3 players are sharing the game's rarest and best-hidden magical items.
