60 hours in as Baldur’s Gate 3’s nasty Dark Urge and I’m kicking myself for missing a load-bearing early cutscene with unique dialogue for every race and class
I can’t restart Baldur’s Gate 3 again, not for like, six months at least. I’ve got about half of Act 3 to go on my Tactician difficulty Dark Urge Paladin/Rogue, and then I’ve gotta put this thing down for a while. Imagine my surprise and despair, then, when I discovered that I missed the Dark Urge’s first major cutscene, which helps set the stage for the character and has unique interactions for every race and class.
The Dark Urge origin lets you fully customize the race, class, and appearance of your character, an amnesiac with an insatiable bloodlust and mysterious past. A post from user Hysorn on the Baldur’s Gate 3 subreddit helpfully drew my attention to the scene. It’s one of those long rest cutscenes, like most of the Dark Urge’s major story beats, and lets you muse about your old life before the events of the game.
Hysorn’s testing indicates that recruiting Lae’zel at the starting beach might be the cutoff point for no longer getting this scene, and I did a long rest right after recruiting Shadowheart to get it. Crucially, you don’t need to waste supplies to trigger long rest cutscenes like this, a “partial” long rest from your camp at night will do the trick.
While lying down for that first rest, you can choose a thread from your past life to muse on. The unique racial options are cool—with a Tiefling the narrator talks about how you are far removed from the infernal, implying that your affliction comes from elsewhere. But for my money, the class-based responses are the real treat.
As yet another Paladin, the Narrator told me, “The oath you awoke with is some faded instinct, what does it even stand for?” User tiofrodo on the Baldur’s Gate 3 subreddit has collected all of the different class responses in one place, and they’re all suitably moody and haunting.
I’m quite fond of the Bard line, “The call to song is a hollow joy. You are more suited for Death’s Dirge.” The Cleric’s dialogue is a bit of a whammy as well: “The worship of your god feels like an ancient fool’s errand you’re only following out of habit. When you call to the skies, there is no answer.” Well, no answer, but thanks for the Guiding Bolts at least!
I particularly dig how this moment can provide some roleplaying structure for the Dark Urge—you were a very specific person in your past life, but this scene from Larian is a helpful prompt to fill in the gaps of that story yourself. How is this (potentially former) freakazoid murderer a Paladin? Maybe there was some version of them in that past life who tried to be better.
If you’ve been thinking about taking the Dark Urge plunge for your next character, I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve been playing a heroic Dark Urge, “The Dork Urge” if you will, and I’ve found it supremely satisfying—especially the amount of additional story content you get in Act 3. Baldur’s Gate 3’s lead writer Adam Smith was right on the money when he declared it “potentially the most heroic playthrough.”
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