10 Baldur’s Gate 3 Moments that are Completely Different on a Second Playthrough

When it comes to replayability, Baldur's Gate 3 is filled to the brim, with countless different ways you can actively change your playthrough so it's different the second time around. However, you'll still deal with some scripted encounters that don't change, regardless of your alignment or actions.

Despite this, some of these events feel leagues different when you experience them a second time, and that's the power of context.

Considering how there are so many stories happening at once, told in fragments and layers like a trial of breadcrumbs, there is also a ton of foreshadowing. Even for the keen-eyed, there are so many details that are easily overlooked, but hold so much more weight now that you've beaten the game.

How different they feel depends on how thorough you were in all honesty, but even for those that flew through the quests, there are plenty of moments where you have to stop and re-evaluate your information.

10 Meeting Your Companions

Plus Potential Character Interactions

Meeting the various companions for the first time seems like any other standard party introduction, and it almost feels that way on a second playthrough. However, after knowing their stories, you can't quite look at them the same anymore — they're all fully fleshed, complex individuals.

This is only amplified with certain conversations that you can have with them — for example, talking about Cazador to Astarion will likely result in different dialogue choices after you actually met, fought, and killed the wannabe ascendant. The same goes for say, Wyll, and knowing that he's trying to keep Mizora a secret for as long as possible. In fact, you'll learn that the whole camp is genuinely terrible at keeping secrets.

Of course, this also plays into your romance options, since you likely know what everyone approves or disapproves of, but each conversation that you have with each companion will likely have wildly different results due to the power of context.

9 The Dark Urge

Suddenly, All Plot Holes are Filled

If you've not had the chance to play as The Dark Urge yet, you're missing out. Of course, there's the murder sprees and the worst intrusive thoughts you've ever seen — it's basically OCD simulator to the extreme (coming from someone diagnosed).

However, when you play through as a Durge (what The Dark Urge is colloquially called), you'll notice so many plot holes actually be filled in real time, especially as you regain your memories. You'll learn the truth about the whole Absolute Plot, you'll learn the truth about the Bhaalspawn ... about you.

Not only that, but the romances actually play out completely differently with each character, allowing you to learn even more about your tragic companions. Every single aspect of the game feels different when you switch from playing a Tav to playing a Durge, and it's the reason why many players don't go back to Tav after they're done.

The Dark Urge's storyline is fascinating, and it's always a great idea to play as one during a repeat playthrough.

8 All of Crèche Y'llek

A Monastery of Ulterior Motives

When you're ready to progress to Moonrise Towers, you're able to take two different routes: one underground, via the Underdark, and one above ground, cutting through Crèche Y'llek, a githyanki crèche nestled in the remains of Rosymorn Monastery.

When you step in, everything and everyone is on edge. They're all on the hunt for the very same prism that you carry, but even worse, they're not being 100 percent honest about what it takes to get rid of the tadpole. It's not a cleansing like they claim, but rather, it's an extraction and execution, one that the ghustil seems far too excited about.

Lae'zel's naiveté really comes out at the crèche, with all of her beliefs being brought into question, especially after dealing with the zaith'isk and the chirai (where Vlaakith's true intentions are made clear). It's heartbreaking on behalf of her, but it opens her eyes ... and on repeat playthroughs, you can see every single little lie the crèche is built on.

Coming back, you'll see that the only ones who are truly on your side, are your own party.

7 Meeting Withers

Everything is Not What it Seems

When you get to the Dank Crypt located underneath the Chapel, there are all kinds of different things you have to deal with. You've got an adventuring party that wants everything for themselves, undead skeletons trying to protect Jergal's resting place, and then Withers, another undead being who acts far more humble than what his abilities say.

Whether he's a champion of Jergal or straight up just Jergal himself, one thing is for sure: Withers is an immensely powerful ally who isn't being completely honest about who he is or what he's trying to do. He's meant to aid the party on their adventure, offering help with changing classes, hirelings who would fight alongside you ... and raising fallen allies back from the dead. Which, it's already been established that that kind of magic is immensely powerful.

You don't get a full idea of who Withers really is until you make it to the end, where he himself speaks to the Dead Three and taunts them for underestimating the party he aided. It's this cutscene that tips off many players that he's far more divine than undead.

On subsequent playthroughs, players keep a sharper eye on him, looking for any additional details that explain his origins.

6 The Goblin Camp

We Know The Absolute

Throughout the game, you're going to constantly hear mention of an entity called The Absolute, a trendy new god that just so happens to leave mind flayers in its wake. However, most of the foreshadowing of this being is in Act One, mostly through the goblins and their allies, as they are new worshipers of The Absolute.

The Goblin Camp as a whole is surrounded with these worshipers, and as you progress through, you will find so many hidden secrets and details hidden in plain sight at that camp. Many of them won't even make sense until you make it to the end.

So when you finally do go back through in a repeat playthrough, you'll notice those same details, but you know where those trails of breadcrumbs actually lead. Knowing the truth about The Absolute will open your eyes to all of its foreshadowing that's sprinkled throughout the map. It just so happens that the bulk of it can actually be found at a rundown camp overrun with goblins.

And, of course, Minthara's appearance and subsequent devotion is another little detail that can be found here — leading to one of the most unique and fascinating non-origin recruits in the whole game.

5 Stumbling Upon the Western Beach

We Also Know The Stone Lord!

The neat thing about when you get to Act Three is that there is simply so much to do in the city of Baldur's Gate (and the town right before, Rivington) that you actually won't experience it all on your first playthrough. Some details are easy to completely miss in its entirety, such as the Western Beach.

The Western Beach can be found just underneath Wyrm's Rock Fortress, leading to where the Moonrise Towers shipments had docked. However, it's not just cargo that's there, but two different opposing groups, fighting over "The Stone Lord."

The Stone Lord, come to find out, is actually Minsc of Rashemen, one of the original heroes of Baldur's Gate that took down Sarevok Anchev over a century prior (with the help of Jaheira, of course). Now, he's tadpoled, brainwashed into following the Absolute's bidding until we rescue him from that mental torment.

Playing through again, you'll see many other references to Minsc being The Stone Lord throughout Act Three, making his discovery and rescue all the cooler.

4 Arriving at Reithwin

So Much Lore on Display

Of all the acts in the game, I think Act Two is my favourite. There is genuinely so much when it comes to the Shadow Cursed Lands that you can be exploring for hours, finding little pieces of lore everywhere you go. The picture it paints is so vivid, even for first-time players who don't know all the spoilers yet.

The Shadow Cursed Lands, formerly known as Reithwin Town, is full of information about Ketheric Thorm, his rise to power, and his subsequent descent into madness. There's foreshadowing about the origins of the Shadow Curse and how to remove it, details about the inhabitants who lost their lives there, memories structured into dilapidated buildings that shows you that this town was real.

Replaying through the game, the entire section feels different due to the fact that you know exactly what happened here; you have a firm grasp on the reign of terror as well as the death and the destruction left in Ketheric's wake. Even still, you might even find more details about the area and its story that you completely missed the first time around.

Either way, Reithwin as a location is packed to the brim with lore that's desperate to be peeled away, and so long as you have Halsin on your side, you can restore the town to its former glory.

3 Meeting the Dead Three's Chosen

Suddenly it All Lines Up

As you're getting through Acts One and Two, one of the main questions that you're trying to answer gets more and more pressing as you progress: who exactly is The Absolute?

When you make it to the end of Act Two, right when you're about to fight Ketheric Thorm for the final time, you learn that The Absolute is actually comprised of the Dead Three's chosen: Bhaal, represented by Orin, Bane, represented by Enver Gortash, and Myrkul, represented by Ketheric.

Gortash's name should be familiar for those of you who talked to Karlach: he was the reason why she was enslaved in Avernus in the first place. If you were to play the game again with this knowledge, you'll have a bitter taste in your mouth as you know what Gortash has gotten up to since Karlach's imprisonment.

Suddenly, everything you've been juggling the past several quests all start to align and make more sense, foreshadowing who the true enemies really are. So, when you play again, pay attention to the plan that was discussed: you'll notice how it was almost executed flawlessly, if it weren't for you.

2 The Dream Visitor

Liar, Liar, Tentacles on Fire

One of the most shocking reveals in Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't involve The Absolute nor the Dead Three, but rather, a certain visitor that keeps harassing you in your dreams. This dream visitor that you designed yourself is none other than The Emperor, a mind flayer that was formerly Balduran himself. It's dizzying the first time it clicks.

It also just so happens that The Emperor is a habitual liar, and will stop at nothing to reach his own goal, regardless of how he has to manipulate you to do so. He's going to try and make himself seem as trustworthy as possible, but his true colours come out when you reject him.

Going back through the game in any subsequent playthrough, and you'll notice the cracks in the Dream Visitor's facade almost right away, and you'll even notice how The Emperor doesn't even bother to hide his mannerisms to be more convincing. He's relying on illusion alone, and for that first playthrough, it worked.

As you learn the truth about The Emperor from other characters in Act Three as well, you will never like him in your repeat playthroughs ever again.

1 Shadowheart's Memories

A Childhood Stolen

Shadowheart's backstory is easily one of the saddest, with all of her memories repressed by Shar to keep her easily controlled. However, the extent of that brainwashing goes much further than amnesia for a mission. It stems from her very childhood, being ripped away from her parents and manipulated to believe nothing but lies.

Even worse, her parents were captured and made to witness every single moment of it.

Shadowheart, of course, is none the wiser, but what little memories she possesses start to sow the seeds of doubt; doubt that you can either encourage or extinguish — and based on how she was literally kidnapped by Sharrans and groomed into their cult, it's always better to encourage that doubt so that she can sever her connection to Shar.

Because of this, on repeat playthroughs, as you pay attention to the vacancy in her eyes, you'll find so many more details that show just how hard the cult fought to keep Shadowheart under strict lock and key. It's a horrific notion that you see spelled out right in front of you, and given the context, Shadowheart becomes an entirely different (and far more tragic) character.