Baldur’s Gate 3 players are returning to Larian Studios’ award-winning RPG in droves following the launch of Patch 7, introducing several new evil endings, new content, improvements and much more to bring the experience as close as possible to a ‘definitive edition’ yet. There are plenty of choices that await players hopping into the game, from classes and subclasses to races, spells and religions, among others. However, if you aren’t set on picking a custom-made Tav again, now is a pretty great time to play The Dark Urge.
During the character creation screen for Baldur’s Gate 3, players might miss The Dark Urge in the Origin characters. This is a customisable character with a preset story called The Haunted One. Most players might already be familiar with the fact that The Dark Urge seems tailor-made for evil playthroughs. It just so happens that Larian Studios recently dropped its most substantial evil updates with Patch 7, meaning it’s as good a time as any to try out an evil run of the game.
The common misconception about The Dark Urge is that it’s only made for an evil playthrough, just with more insatiable, sadistic violence. This is very far from the truth. The Dark Urge is a feeling constantly tempting you into committing atrocities like murder, torture or sinister goals. In reality, it’s perfectly viable to resist those temptations entirely. This path of resistance ends up becoming arguably the best story told in Baldur’s Gate 3 – moreso than a blank slate Tav.
Of course, the real bread and butter is leaning into the dark side of The Dark Urge. For the sake of witnessing the depths of madness that the story spirals into once you give into temptation, an evil playthrough is every bit as enjoyable and diabolically fun as being the good guy for the 100th time. Understandably, some players won’t be able to stomach being an evil psychopath murdering innocents for their own gain – that’s perfectly fine but Larian Studios gave us choices for a reason.
Patch 7 has introduced a handful of new endings for the game, rewarding your evil escapades. It’s still possible to be an evil Tav if you want the benefit of creating your own backstory for your character but an evil Dark Urge ramps things up considerably.
As for the benefits of playing an evil Dark Urge, you’re getting quite a bit of new content in exchange for some atrocities. Regardless of what many say about big chunks of content being lost in an evil run, it’s honestly not as much as they make it out to be. You’ll still inch towards Level 12 once you enter Act 3 as usual and there’s enough content added into an evil run to compensate for the good ‘lost content.’ There’s also Minthara, one of the best companions in the game who really shines as a brilliantly written character next to your evil bloke.
Most importantly, if you haven’t experienced The Dark Urge, note that the story is quite different, at least in regards to the player character. While Tav seems to sideline the story and not have much “main character” agency in it, The Dark Urge plays a crucial part in the story, making their journey a lot more interesting and layered – it almost feels like Larian Studios once made The Dark Urge the true player character story for the game before making it an optional mode for some reason.
Patch 7 for Baldur’s Gate 3 is unfortunately limited to PC at the moment but you can expect it to hit PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles sometime in October. If you’re waiting for the console update, we strongly recommend giving The Dark Urge a chance if you haven’t already.
