According to a conversation between Chrystal Ding, associate writing lead at Larian Studios, and Fextralife, "Baldur's Gate 3" has a huge number of endings: "I asked her how many How many variations are there?"

The answer was, "A lot.

The answer is 17,000, which puts it in line with Larian's other huge promise of a 174-hour cinematic! 22 subclasses! Newspapers reacting to the choices! No doubt they're sparking pre-release publicity for Baldur's Gate 3, but I feel like I should temper my expectations a bit here.

Not that 17,000 endings mean 17,000 radically different experiences. Rather, what is more likely is that some sort of epilogue will be incorporated into the endgame, similar to the one at the end of Divinity Original Sin 2. Even if not so unique from the player's perspective, technically each could create a tailor-made cinematic.

That said, it is still a huge amount of work, and I would not be at all surprised if Dinh mentioned that he has been working steadily on the ending for six months. The mere thought of arranging so many possibilities in a way that is not jarring is enough to give me a migraine. It is also reassuring to know that my choices are tracked in such a tangible way. Because this kind of authorship over one's own narrative is key to a good CRPG.

Michael Daus, Larian's publishing director, was less reassured when he tweeted a quote from this video: "Found the number 17,000. It is not hard to imagine the flood of questions and speculation that will follow this video. Fortunately, we don't have to wait that long to grind out the ending.