I was talking with a group of friends recently about Baldur’s Gate 3, and all the different routes you can take in Larian’s RPG. Since I’m not going to be able to commit to a replay any time soon, and with the game lacking a highlight reel and updates merely tweaking the kisses rather than offering new adventures, conversation is all we have. It’s making me realise what I missed out on.

We discussed our decisions with Shadowheart, our favourite companions and romantic conquests, and choices we made with the goblins, the gith, and various other conundrums. Which side quests we pursued, which we abandoned due to the game’s sheer size (or accidentally locked ourselves out of), and which ones we never even encountered. Then they asked me if I had a shovel. Were they stupid?

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Of course I had a shovel. It’s one of the easiest tools to obtain and available right from the start of the game. You can’t walk more than ten steps without being prompted to dig up a chest. There are shovels lying around on piles of dirt begging you to grab them, and even if you miss them, early stores have shovels for, well, dirt cheap. I mean, why was it even a question?

Turns out I was the stupid one. Shovel (that’s with a capital letter, though you can’t tell as it’s also the start of a sentence) is a quasit you can recruit to your party. Similar to the owlbear cub or Scratch, Shovel is not a full party member but can come along for the adventure. I had never even heard of them.

I feel a little better that the Trophy for meeting Shovel has only been earned by 19 percent of players.

Who Is Shovel In Baldur’s Gate 3?

It turns out Shovel can be found in Act 1’s Blighted Village, via a scroll hidden away in a box. This scroll can summon Shovel immediately for a one-off encounter, or can be learned permanently by a wizard (the player character or Gale) for 50 gold. This latter option means Shovel is part of the journey for the whole saga, and adds a slice of chaos to everything.

It got me thinking about how much I must have missed in Baldur’s Gate 3. Even after spending close to 100 hours in the game myself, and watching my wife play a similar length of time (she’s currently halfway through Act 3), I considered all the characters I hadn’t met. Some that only appeared through a succession of specific choices, some from quest lines I never discovered, and some, apparently, just sitting in a box.

I know of Thomas C. Quirkilious from what people have shared online, but I never laid eyes on him. Heck, I missed the entire Mountain Pass due to a misunderstanding over Act 2’s points of no return, but have rectified that by seeing my wife’s odyssey through the gith encampment. There are many other characters, of influence great and small, who escaped by playthrough too. I wish I’d met them, but in a way, I’m glad I didn’t.

The fact these characters exist at all, and yet my own playthrough feels so rich without them, shows the depth Baldur’s Gate 3 has. It’s impossible to do everything in one run, not least because there are divergent pathways that are the result of a binary choice one way or another. But even without those, scoping out every corner in a single adventure is impossible. I guess that’s why God invented multiple save files.

Everyone has their own story in Baldur’s Gate 3, and that means each of us has a slightly different cast of characters too. But next time you play Baldur’s Gate, remember to grab a Shovel.

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Baldur's Gate 3

RPG Systems 5.0/5 25 9.4/10 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 96/100 Critics Rec: 98% Released August 3, 2023 ESRB M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence Developer(s) Larian Studios Publisher(s) Larian Studios Engine Divinity 4.0
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Baldur's Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.

Platform(s) PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, macOS Powered by Expand Collapse