Why a Baldur's Gate 3 Sequel Should Focus on the Feywild (2024)

The Feywild is one of the most mysterious planes in Dungeons and Dragons, thanks to its ever-changing nature. Although the Feywild didn't appear in Baldur's Gate 3, its sequel has an opportunity to focus on the Feywild as a location by either moving the entire campaign, or a significant part of it, within the setting.

The Feywild is a plane ruled by magic. Its inhabitants operate on a different set of moralities than what could be expected from the Material Plane, and the proliferation of magic within the setting would make for an experience that is creative, clever, and subverts player expectations. As the Feywild tends to be affected by emotions, player choice and agency in a Baldur's Gate 3 sequel could have larger consequences than ever before within this setting, while the scope for role-playing improves significantly thanks to the addition of new races and subclasses that the Feywild could introduce.

The Feywild's Role in the Forgotten Realms

The Feywild is one of the planes in the Forgotten Realms and, notably, one that lies parallel to the prime Material Plane. The two planes mirror each other, but where the Material Plane hosts magic, the Feywild has magic baked into its very being. All the creatures, nature, and environments of the Feywild are magical, creating a world that's similar to the Material Plane, but not an exact copy. Elves are descended from fey beings that originated in the Feywild, and their resistance to being Charmed and magical sleep are throwbacks to their fey origins. Other fey creatures, such as hags and pixies, are examples of the kind of beings that are common in the Feywild.

Roleplay in the Feywild

With its entirely different catalog of monsters, races, environments, and laws of magic, the Feywild would be a fascinating location for the next Baldur's Gate game. The fey are notorious for their duplicitous nature, which falls beyond the boundaries of the usual alignments seen in the Forgotten Realms.

With an entire world inhabited by the fey, both friendly and enemies, there would be great potential for role-playing, especially if the narrative designers placed the player characters into difficult scenarios, based on fey morality rather than conventional ideas of good and evil. This has the potential to give both the writers and players some creative problems and solutions, especially if the next Baldur's Gate takes player freedom even further than Larian did with Baldur's Gate 3.

Incorporating the Feywild Into the Next Baldur's Gate

Including the Feywild also brings the Elven subrace, the Eladrin, and some subclasses for several of the classes that were included in Baldur's Gate 3. The Eladrin are the elves who still live in the Feywild, and who can draw from the emotional energy of the Feywild to affect their appearance and magic. This effect is based on the seasons and can change, though it may stay the same forever. Eladrin cities are sometimes known to randomly appear in the wilds of the Material Plane, then disappear, giving any Eladrin characters a reason to appear in a Material Plane campaign.

Subclasses that are intrinsically connected to the Feywild include:

• Barbarian: Path of Wild Magic
• Cleric: Trickery Domain
• Paladin: Oath of the Ancients
• Warlock: The Archfey
• Druid: Circle of Dreams
• Ranger: Horizon Walker

Some of these subclasses already appear in Baldur's Gate 3, but they can be improved and streamlined to better accommodate the Feywild theme. The Druid's Circle of Dreams and Ranger's Horizon Walker subclasses, the two new subclasses, would be great variations of these two classes.

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3 is a Dungeons and Dragons inspired RPG developed and published by Larian Studios. Featuring both a single player and cooperative element, players create their character by selecting a starting class, take on quests, level up, and engage in turn-based combat using the D&D 5th edition rule set.

Franchise

Baldur's Gate

Platform(s)

PC , Stadia , macOS , PS5 , Xbox Series X

Released

August 3, 2023

Developer(s)

Larian Studios

Publisher(s)

Larian Studios

Genre(s)

RPG

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence

How Long To Beat

30 Hours

Metascore

96

Split Screen Orientation

Vertical Only

Number of Players

1-4

PS Plus Availability

N/A

Local Co-Op Support

1-2 Players

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