Baldur's Gate 3 Proves That The Forgotten Realms Can't Last Forever

Baldur's Gate 3's setting, the Forgotten Realms, is the perfect home for heroic fantasy in a lot of ways. Created by Ed Greenwood in his childhood and later introduced as an official Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, the Forgotten Realms now serve as the default home for most modern DnD content. Baldur's Gate 3's engaging story and locations are a great reminder of how much the Forgotten Realms still has to give, but the game also showcases how a lot of what makes the setting interesting for adventurers could spell its doom in the long run.

The overall scope of the Forgotten Realms covers a lot of ground, but Baldur's Gate 3 sticks to a small corner of the continent of Faerûn. As one of the major centers of culture and trade dotted across the wilderness of the Sword Coast area, the city of Baldur's Gate is a fascinating destination that's surrounded by perilous lands even on the best of days. Although Baldur's Gate 3 dials up the danger with the advent of the Absolute, many of the game's challenges come from threats that have been carving out their footholds for a while.

The City Of Baldur's Gate Is Built On Almost Nothing

A Critical Foundation Is Riddled With Dungeons

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There might be nothing more important for a city than its foundations, but when it comes to Baldur's Gate, those are starting to look very dicey. The situation is laid out nicely by Reddit user maikol2346, who lists out a number of major locations found underneath the city in Act 3. From the Bhaalist temple to Cazador's elaborate dungeon, the Undercity has almost as much going on as the city proper, even if the average citizen of Baldur's Gate may never know about it.

Although it's possible to build tunnels or catacombs under a city in a way that maintains structural integrity, the sewer system is the only thing underneath Baldur's Gate that seems particularly likely to have been cleared by any experts, and even that seems like it could use some maintenance. When looking at the bigger picture, there's no way that the situation can last forever. Sooner or later, the city will be hollowed out by one dungeon too many, bringing the whole thing crashing down even without the involvement of the Absolute.

Baldur’s Gate Isn’t The Only D&D Location At Risk

The Forgotten Realms Are Structurally Unsound

As the prime destination in Baldur's Gate 3, the city of Baldur's Gate is a great place to start when looking at the structural problems of the Forgotten Realms, but it's far from the only place in jeopardy. Gale's home of Waterdeep might be an even better example, as the city's iconic Yawning Portal Inn opens up directly into the carved-out chasms of the Undermountain, a gigantic megadungeon that goes very, very deep. Waterdeep citizens have clearly accepted the situation, and there's never been any mass exodus in fear of a collapse.

It's easy to miss many of Act 3's most interesting locations, so playing carefully and talking to everyone in sight is the best approach when there's no rush.

Jumping back to Act 1 of Baldur's Gate 3 points a finger at the most extensive problem in Faerûn — the Underdark. Cave systems are obviously a natural part of the world, but the enormous expanse of the Underdark puts any cave system on earth to shame. Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't even show the full extent of the Underdark, which can be divided into three tiers known as the Upperdark, Middledark, and Lowerdark, with the last referring to the depths that are 10 miles beneath the ground or deeper.

Related How To Get To The Underdark In Baldur's Gate 3 To reach the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3, navigate through one of four efficient routes, and do your best to bypass the dangers along the way.

It's possible to hand-wave the situation as unimportant in a fantasy world, as there's no hard rule that the Forgotten Realms have to obey the same fundamental principles that Earth does. There are still a lot of other rules in DnD, however, and most would indicate that laws like gravity can't just be tossed out the window. Calculations for things like running jumps tend to be at least somewhat realistic, although a lot of movement rules obviously support the idea that party members are capable of exceptional feats as heroic adventurers.

BG3’s Forgotten Realms Are Built For Gameplay

Fun Matters More Than Scientific Laws

The lack of structural integrity in the Forgotten Realms isn't just a haphazard choice, and the motivation for designing a world riddled with holes is fairly obvious. Dungeons & Dragons is called Dungeons & Dragons for a reason, and venturing down into the depths has been a core part of that experience for even longer than the Forgotten Realms has. Dungeons don't always have to be underneath the ground, but hiding many of them beneath the surface opens up a lot more possibilities, especially when it comes to a metropolis like Baldur's Gate.

Related Should You Kill Gortash Or Orin First In Baldur’s Gate 3 Act 3? The third act of Baldur’s Gate 3 presents two major villains the party needs to deal with, but it can be difficult to know which lead to chase first.

It's hard to imagine an Act 3 that doesn't send the party beneath the city on plenty of side quests, and it's especially hard to imagine it being as compelling as the one that exists. Talking to NPCs throughout the city can be one of the game's biggest joys, but it would be bizarre for dungeon-crawling to cut off after reaching the city, and placing some of the darkest and most secretive enclaves on the surface would be hard to justify. Suspension of disbelief is often necessary for a truly great adventure, and Baldur's Gate 3 is no exception.

From any logical standpoint, the Forgotten Realms are doomed to fall someday, but that doesn't mean they'll be going away any time soon. DnD's continuing to commit to the setting in current and future books, although the return of the classic Greyhawk campaign setting in the new Dungeon Master's Guide is a nice treat on the side. Getting some new DnD games from other campaign settings would also be fun, but the Baldur's Gate series could never abandon its namesake, and Baldur's Gate 3's trip through its undeniably jeopardized world is a fantastically memorable one.

Source: maikol2346/Reddit