Baldur’s Gate 3’s big Guardian plot twist haunts players over a year later

Baldur’s Gate 3 is celebrating its first anniversary, but even after an entire year, players are still reeling from a key story revelation regarding one of the game’s customizable characters.

Any player who has reached the late stages of Baldur’s Gate 3 will know the Guardian isn’t actually who they originally appear to be. One of the first things you’ll do in any run is customize this character to your liking, but this mysterious figure has so many dark secrets that many players ultimately feel like they’ve been catfished.

Even now that the game has been out for a full year, the Baldur’s Gate 3 community is still talking about how stunned they were by the big plot twist that the player’s Guardian is actually a mind flayer known as the Emperor.

One meme posted on the BaldursGate3 subreddit sums up the shock pretty well, highlighting the time many players put into designing their ideal Guardians only to discover later on that their initial appearance was a ruse.

The top comment on the post hilariously explains how some players approach Guardian design differently once they know the truth: “Everyone’s first Guardian is their perfect romantic ideal or someone they can imagine as a mentor. Everyone’s every subsequent Guardian is hitting random until you get a result that makes you burst into uncontrollable laughter.”

“I block the screen before hitting random so when they show up it’s a surprise,” shared another.

Others praised developer Larian Studios for managing to actually shock players by getting them attached to their Guardian only to break their hearts.

As one said, “I put so much thought into my first guardian,” incorporating them into their Tav’s backstory. “Then came act 3. Damn you Larian and your amazing storytelling.”

Of course, not everyone is heartbroken by the Guardian twist. Larian shared stats for Baldur’s Gate 3’s anniversary that reveal over a million players chose to romance the Emperor despite the truth, with 37% of those players sleeping with him in his mind flayer form – despite having the option to have him maintain the Guardian design.