Baldur’s Gate 3: 10 Best Character Endings, Ranked

Highlights

• Baldur’s Gate 3 offers multiple endings for the player character and their companions, ranging from heroic to evil, bittersweet to tragic.
• Achieving certain endings for companion characters requires specific choices and actions, such as embracing or resisting dark urges, betraying the party, or saving loved ones.
• The game’s new updates and features, including Honour Mode and a new epilogue, emphasize the importance of achieving desired endings and encourage multiple playthroughs.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has many paths someone can take that will affect the ultimate fates of the player character and their companions. These endings range from heroic, to evil; bittersweet, to downright tragic. Whatever ending players are hoping to get for themselves and each of their companions, some are bound to satisfy more than others.

What are some of the more narratively appealing endings for the companion characters, along with some unique ones? Furthermore, what steps should someone take to achieve each ending? After all, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story that benefits from multiple playthroughs.

Updated January 9, 2024 by Nyah Payne: 2023 saw Baldur’s Gate 3 sweep The Game Awards, including winning the prestigious Game of the Year award. But Larian doesn’t seem to have slowed down a jot! The critically acclaimed RPG has also been released on Xbox Series X/S, and a huge update has added plenty of new features to the game.

This includes Honour Mode, which challenges players to complete the game on the hardest difficulty without getting a “game over” (or save scumming). A new epilogue has also been added, meaning that it is more important than ever to make sure players get their desired BG3 ending for each of their characters.

10 Dark Urge Rejects Bhaal

Heroic Ending For Dark Urge Players

• Must be a Dark Urge character
• Kill Orin the Red
• Defy Bhaal himself

While they are not the officially recommended option for a first run, the Dark Urge is a character with a fascinating story. They are a chosen of Bhaal, driven to kill by “dark urges,” and this story comes to a climax in Act 3 when players kill Orin the Red, a fellow chosen of Bhaal.

It is at this point that Bhaal will attempt to claim the Dark Urge once and for all, and also at this point that players can resist the urge for the last time. Defying the Lord of Murder at this moment leads to a unique interaction where Bhaal kills the player, only for Withers to resurrect them with their free will intact. This is a particularly satisfying Dark Urge ending to pair with the heroic game ending.

9 Become The Absolute

The Most Evil Ending Players Can Achieve

• Become a mindflayer when offered
• Alternatively, sacrifice the mindflayer companion when the elder brain is distracted
• Take control of the elder brain

On the other end of the spectrum, becoming the Absolute is an ideal ending to a very evil run. This conclusion requires betraying the player’s whole party, exerting control of the elder brain, and ruling as the Absolute, single-handedly fulfilling the goals of The Dead Three.

While this ending is objectively very bad for almost every inhabitant of Faerun, it fits an evil run since the player character becomes the ultimate evil. This ending can be particularly appropriate for an evil Dark Urge run, but any character can achieve it, including the origin characters.

8 Raphael’s Ending

Unique Post Credits Scene

• Meet Raphael in Sharress’ Caress
• Accept his deal
• DO NOT go to the House Of Hope

Players who accept the deal with the devil, Raphael, will be treated to a dramatic and sinister post-credits scene. Raphael wants players to give the Crown of Karsus, currently being used to control The Elder Brain, to him. What he plans to do with it is his own sinister business, but the post-credits scene reveals all.

Backed by his own score, Raphael seems to address the players themselves, as he speaks about his plans to use the Crown to take over Avernus, end The Blood War, and find more worlds to dominate. While it is a foreboding post-credits scene, it is an appropriately dramatic ending to the player’s interactions with Raphael.

7 Lae’zel’s Life Is Her Own

Lae’zel’s Arc Concludes With Her Independence

• Enter the Astral Prism in the Githyanki Creche
• Encourage Lae’zel to renounce Vlaakith
• Side with the Emperor and pass Lae’zel’s challenging persuasion checks

While it may not be as dramatic as one of her other good endings, this ending for the companion character, Lae’zel, is a very enjoyable conclusion to her arc. Lae’zel struggles with her faith throughout the game’s narrative. As a githyanki, she is reverent towards the githyanki deity, Vlaakith. Throughout the story, however, she can come to learn of Vlaakith’s deception and treachery to her people.

Her old faith lost, Lae’zel gravitates towards the githyanki prince, Orpheus, who seeks to free her people from Vlaakith’s tyranny. Players who side with The Emperor and get Orpheus killed after Lae’zel turns her back on Vlaakith will have a lot of challenging persuasion checks to pass but, in doing so, can convince Lae’zel to join the party for good. After witnessing her turmoils of faith, seeing Lae’zel live for herself rather than in the service of others can be a very satisfying conclusion for her.

6 Karlach’s Death

A Heart-Wrenching Character Ending

• Defeat the Absolute
• Don’t convince Karlach to return to Avernus

While this ending is by no means a happy one, it may be one of the most raw and emotional. Companion character, Karlach, has an infernal engine for a heart, courtesy of the archdevil, Zariel. Outside of Avernus, this infernal machine is a ticking time bomb, ready to burn up at any moment.

After defeating the Absolute, Karlach’s time comes, as she can no longer take the heat from her engine. Staying with Karlach through her heart-wrenching final moments as she burns up once and for all is certainly one of the most moving endings, even if it is an unbelievably tragic fate for a character as lighthearted as Karlach.

5 Retreat To The Shadows With Astarion

Astarion Frees Cazador’s Spawn And Lives With His Lover

• Romance Astarion
• Challenge Cazador
• End Cazador’s Ritual
• Agree to stay with Astarion

It can be hard to get a happy ending for Astarion while also encouraging him to be a moral person. Astarion’s endings typically see him taking on Cazador’s mantle and becoming a vampire lord, or remaining a vampire spawn and being forced into a life of shadow the moment his illithid protection wears off.

But, if players are romantically tied to Astarion, they can get the option to return to the Underdark with him, where the pair will oversee the colony of vampire spawn that were freed from Cazador’s Palace. While Astarion may never face the sun again, he doesn’t seem to mind too much with his lover by his side.

4 Domestic Life With Shadowheart

A Touchingly Quiet End To Shadowheart’s Tough Arc

• Romance Shadowheart
• Convince Shadowheart to spare the Nightsong
• Investigate the House of Grief with Shadowheart
• Convince her to save her parents

Shadowheart is a companion character steeped in tragedy, so the happy ending with Shadowheart as a romantic partner is a welcome change for the poor cleric. To get this particularly satisfying ending with Shadowheart, players will need to romance her and save her parents from Shar.

After all the terrible things Shadowheart has witnessed and, indeed, inflicted, it is perhaps no surprise that she seeks a quiet and domestic life, somewhere in Baldur’s Gate where she can spend time with her parents. As Shadowheart’s lover, she wants the player character to be a part of that blissful future.

3 Gale Returns The Crown To Mystra

Gale Refuses To Repeat The Folly Of Karsus

• Gain Gale’s approval
• Whenever possible, convince him to return the Crown of Karsus

If players haven’t built a bond with Gale greater than his quite arrogant drive for arcane power, they may be disappointed to see him reliving his past mistakes and attempting to dethrone Mystra as the god of magic. As his trusted partner, however, or if players are controlling Gale as an origin character, Gale can do the moral thing and forfeit the Crown of Karsus and ultimate control of the weave to Mystra, leaving their past relationship on a positive note.

Speaking of relationships, this is also the ending where Gale can propose to the player character, taking their relationship to the next level. A fitting ending for Gale of Waterdeep.

2 Facing Avernus With Karlach And Wyll

Allows Karlach To Live And Provides A Fitting End For Two Characters

• Defeat the Absolute
• Agree to travel to Avernus with Karlach and Wyll

This ending is a fitting end for both Karlach and Wyll and allows the player character to continue their adventures with them. As Karlach’s engine burns up, threatening to take her with it, players can choose to go to Avernus with her to stabilize it. They can also choose to go there with Wyll, too.

It’s the last thing Karlach wants, as she never wants to be in Zariel’s control again. But to save her life, and to see adventures carry on between the player character, Karlach, and Wyll as they face Avernus together, is the best outcome. It is also satisfying to see the compassion between Wyll and Karlach after their initial conflict towards the start of the game.

1 Lae’zel Fights For Githyanki Freedom

Lae’zel’s Dreams Are Achieved As She Works To Liberate Her People

• Enter the Astral Prism in the Githyanki Creche
• Encourage Lae’zel to renounce Vlaakith
• Side with Orpheus
• Defeat the elder brain

Lae’zel may have one of the coolest endings to her arc. After turning her back on Vlaakith’s tyranny, Lae’zel can choose to join Orpheus’s cause to liberate her people. This ending is particularly poignant if Orpheus lives to join her.

While it may be a better character arc for Lae’zel to choose her own path, rejecting following either doctrine, seeing her join Orpheus’s fight is an undeniably powerful cutscene. After hearing her dreams to become Kith’rak, wield a silver sword, and ride a red dragon mount, it is great to see her fly off on the back of a red dragon, but with the goal of liberation in mind.