Unhinged Baldur's Gate 3 player secures "Worst Ending Possible for Everyone" playthrough

A Baldur's Gate 3 player has perfected the Chaotic Evil route, locking in the absolute worst outcome for literally every major character in the game, with a single notable exception.

This article contains major spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3.

In a post on Reddit, user Sparkism said that their carefully crafted playthrough was "not simply good or evil and definitely not just straight up murderhobo," because leaving at least a few traumatized survivors in your wake is a crucial part of any evil plot. The one character fortunate enough not to suffer this fate? Scratch the dog, "the goodest boy in all the realms."

The lengthy Reddit post makes it clear that Sparkism had been intricately piecing together their plot from the game's earliest moments. Playing as the Dark Urge, you kick things off by poking holes in Us, the friendly Intellect Devourer on the Nautiloid. From there, Shadowheart and Gale are left to their fates in their respective pod and portal, while Lae'zel and Astarion are recruited because they'll "be important later."

Finished my chaotic *Worst Ending Possible for Everyone* run from r/BaldursGate3

Even the actions taken during the first act of this run are cumulatively monstrous. Far more than a simple case of letting everyone die, every action is intended to deal maximum psychic damage; when Arabella the Tiefling girl gets bitten by the snake in the Druid Grove, you're supposed to steal her body and show it to her parents; when you save Sazza the goblin from the makeshift prison, you take her straight back to Minthara and let her die there; when you save the Tiefling astronomer from the Bugbear assassin, you steal from her and then throw her of a cliff.

Nothing lets up once you hit Act 2, where one instruction tells you to beat a man to death with the corpse of his daughter, and then lie to that daughter's grieving girlfriend about the role you played in that death. By the very end of the game, you're killing characters with their own weapons while wearing their clothes. Sadly, Sparkism points out that while you can mess with and betray pretty much everyone in the game, Karlach and Gale don't really have 'bad' mid-to-late game endings, so you'll have to disgust them enough in Act 1 that they voluntarily leave your party.

It's very impressive planning, even if it's also deeply horrifying stuff. Even the vanilla Dark Urge players in the community can't quite believe how bloodthirsty this playthrough is, and there are a fair few players who are just discovering certain painful narrative avenues through this detailed thread. The player points out that all their work required careful planning in advance "just so I don't accidentally give someone a less-bad ending." So just make sure not to upset them in real life.

Our Baldur's Gate 3 review might have looked pretty different if we'd played this way.