Zombies. Ghosts. A single tavern as the sole oasis in the midst of a cursed land. That might sound like the premise of one of the best horror games, but it's Baldur's Gate 3. The CRPG's gloomy second act isn't for everyone – our own Ali Jones deemed it a "miserable change of pace", after all – but I find its total atmospheric 180 one of the best things about the game.
For starters, it immediately ups the ante in terms of stakes. There's a pervasive sense of claustrophobic dread as you navigate the shadow-cursed lands, as touching the wrong thing could result in a surprise battle. Not only that, Act 2 is peppered with plenty of nods to different horror genres that, for me, turned it into a veritable buffet. I needed something to add a touch of the macabre to an otherwise magical fairytale adventure, and Act 2 came through in spades.
Scaring's caring
Here's why Baldur's Gate 3 needs transmog immediately, please.
It's easy to speed through Act 1 and 2 on the way to the bustling city of Baldur's Gate, and while Act 3 is definitely my favorite of all, the second act's oppressive darkness holds a lot more besides. From Silent Hill-esque nurses to the shadow-cursed undead, developer Larian Studios makes excellent use of its horrific scene change to get away with tropey horror movie moments, many of which might've felt cheap elsewhere.
The first time I experienced the ghoulish mayhem Act 2 has to offer, I had no idea what to expect other than a mysterious cursed land. But, looking out through the purply-green swirling mist after leaving the Underdark and soaking in the soundscapes of the area, I knew I'll like it here. It's only when I mistakenly interacted with a dead raven that Baldur's Gate 3 actively jumpscared me with a surprise attack. A horde of about 15 undead ravens swooped in on my unassuming party, inflicting necrotic wounds and quickly decimating our health before I had time for Shadowheart to cast Spirit Guardians.
This isn't the only jumpscare attack in Act 2 – who could forget that pesky Meazel ambush on the way to Moonrise Towers, or those blasted plants that attack you on your way to find Oliver? That last one turns out to be a lot more than just an ambush, though: the whole Thaniel and Oliver plotline is an all-out ghost story.
Just as you reach Oliver's abandoned shack in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, you can inspect the shelves and find various toys. There's an owlbear plushie sitting alongside two bodies and some children's playthings, but once you enter the portal and follow Oliver deeper into the cursed lands, you realize that these items have purpose.
It turns out that the items Oliver plays have shadowy counterparts, as the "best daddy ever" and "best mummy ever" relentlessly attack my party. There's even a shadowy owlbear I have to defeat in my quest to make Oliver see reason and reunite with Thaniel. Oliver himself is more like a ghostly doppelganger, or the externalized darkness, of nature spirit Thaniel, and that dichotomy feels very Jekyll and Hyde to me at times.
The very last light
My favorite B-movie horror moment of BG3 Act 2 is something you won't find unless you really, really mess up.
Venturing even closer to Moonrise Towers, I found the three Thorm children. My favorite of these was Malus Thorm, the twisted Shar-worshipping doctor of the House of Healing. We stopped him from torturing a blinded test subject by convincing him to let the Sisters off themselves before turning the scalpel against his own eye sockets, but the nurses themselves put a chill up my spine. Eyes enshrouded and unnaturally postured, something about them reminded me immediately of the bubble head nurses in the best Silent Hill game ever. From their character design to the soft, sad tone of their voices, I couldn't help but wish that Larian had made more of these spooky sisters and their misplaced attempts at "healing".
My favorite B-movie horror moment of BG3 Act 2 is something you won't find unless you really, really mess up. Or unless you're playing a Dark Urge origin character like I was. After slaughtering Isobel at the Last Light Inn, I accidentally-on-purpose broke the protective charm she holds over the place, and unleashed the full force of the shadow curse on its inhabitants. This immediately turned everyone in the vicinity hostile, but more than that, it turned them into zombies.
The "oh shit" moment is punctuated by the knowledge that you now have to kill all the creatures you'd fought so valiantly to protect at the Emerald Grove back in Act 1, as well as the fact that Jaheira is probably never going to join your party unless the dice rolls in your favor. With the odds stacked against me as I go tearing through this horde of undead, I feel very much like I'm in Dawn of the Dead out here – and frankly, I love it.
There's pretty much nothing happy going on in Act 2, so I can see why many have deemed it the lesser of the three. The Shadow-Cursed Lands are a different beast. They have neither the verdant green magic of Act 1, nor the bustling city of plenty that we explore in Act 3. Instead, Act 2 is the odd one out, a land with very little in the way of comic relief or inherent joy. It marks a welcome shift in our journey toward the Gate, the game taking us by the scruff to let us know that it's getting serious. Like it or not, it's the tone shift we need to break us out of Act 1's whimsy – and the horror-movie embellishments do so with panache.
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