Regions

The regions of Baldur’s Gate 3 are not equally open. Some you walk into off the road. Some have three or four doors and a page explaining each. Two sit behind a bridge or a boat that the game warns you about, because crossing is a point of no return. This guide sorts our nine region pages by that one measure, the number of ways in, since it is the thing that decides whether a region can be entered early, entered quietly, or entered twice.

One road in

The Blighted Village sits west of the Emerald Grove and east of the Goblin Camp, and the only thing between you and it is the goblin welcoming party at the entrance. Once inside it is the busiest square mile in Act 1: a necromancer’s basement holding the Necromancy of Thay, the gnome Barcus Wroot tied to the windmill in Save Barcus Wroot, a barn with two ogres you can leave alone, and Lump the ogre, who sells his services for 1,000 gold on a deception check or hands over Lump’s Horn on a persuasion. The village is also one of the four doors to the Underdark, through the Whispering Depths, provided you have Feather Fall or something else that cancels the drop.

The Festering Cove is the region most players never see. Its single path starts southeast of the Underdark Beach waypoint, climbs a rope net, and runs through poisonous mushrooms and Torchstalks that explode on contact. At the end are the Kuo-toa and their god BOOOAL, and the choice of taking BOOOAL’s Benediction, advantage on attack rolls against bleeding enemies, at a cost the page spells out.

The Githyanki Creche has one road and it only runs one way. It begins at the Mountain Pass bridge where Kith’rak Voss questions you; a DC 10 Persuasion check with Lae’zel doing the talking sends him off without a fight. Crossing the stone bridge afterwards is the first point of no return, and the page tells you to finish your pending quests first. Then a cable car needs a DC 15 Strength roll on the wheel, the monastery’s main door is blocked so you enter through a broken wall into the wine cellar, and the Creche itself is in the basement of Rosymorn Monastery. Bring Lae’zel, be level 6, and expect the Inquisitor at the end; the Blood of Lathander is the reason to stay.

The Morphic Pool is the last region in the game and the shortest page, because the road is a boat. From either the Undercity Ruins or the Temple of Bhaal waypoint you head north to a dock full of blue-eyed rats, which unlocks a waypoint of its own, and step onto the boat. The game warns you before it leaves. On the other side is the Elder Brain and the final confrontation.

Two roads in

Moonrise Towers is Ketheric Thorm’s stronghold and the objective of Act 2, and both roads to it start in Act 1. One goes over the Mountain Pass. The other goes down through the Underdark to Grymforge, past the Adamantine Forge and True Soul Nere, whose death wins you the gnomes. Our page recommends the Mountain Pass first, and the Mountain Pass or Underdark comparison weighs the two in detail. Either way the gate is held by Z’rell and her cultists, a fight the page calls brutal unless you arrive as a True Soul, and a treasure map on a table inside points to a hidden cache.

The Last Light Inn is the safe hub of the same act, kept clear of the curse by Isobel and run by Jaheira’s Harpers. It too has two approaches: from the Underdark boat, heading west to a large metal door, or from the Mountain Pass by way of the Trielta Crags waypoint. The curse between you and it is the real obstacle, which is why Kar’niss and his Moon Lantern matter, and the road is patrolled by level 6 undead the page suggests smiting or slipping past invisibly. Inside are Dammon, the Grove’s Tiefling refugees and a bed.

Three and four roads in

The Goblin Camp is the game’s first big dungeon and the page wants you at level 4 before you try it. There are three ways to be let in: rescue the goblin Sazza from the Grove and she vouches for you, play a Drow, or convince the guards you carry news for the leaders. A fourth is a crumbling wall you can break to sneak past everyone. The camp has three areas, and the page walks through every activity in each, from Volo and the Chicken Chaser game outside to the Shattered Sanctum with its Defiled Temple moon puzzle, the spider pit under a jail cell, the three leaders, Roah Moonglow’s stock and Halsin in the Worg Pens, and finally how to get out again.

The Underdark is optional and, by our page’s reckoning, the most interesting place in the game, with four doors. The Defiled Temple in the Goblin Camp opens after the moon puzzle. The Zhentarim Hideout west of Waukeen’s Rest hides an elevator behind a false wall, reached with Rugan’s password and either a lockpick or the guard’s pocketed key, and using it in front of the guards turns the hideout hostile. Auntie Ethel’s Teahouse has an overgrown tunnel. And the Whispering Depths drop lands you there if Feather Fall is up, or kills you if it is not.

The Lower City is where most of Act 3 happens, and you start Act 3 locked out of it in Rivington. The page gives four ways through: earn the official entry pass; sneak past the guards at Wyrm’s Rock Fortress by taking the ladder on the right and Feather Falling through a broken fence; talk or fight your way past the South Span checkpoint; or finish Investigate the Suspicious Toys, whose key opens a passage and whose report goes to Investigator Valeria at Sharess’ Caress. The city itself splits into the streets and the sewers, and it is where the game’s rarest gear is sold.

Roads you cannot walk back down

Two of the nine roads are marked by a warning: the stone bridge into the Mountain Pass and the boat to the Morphic Pool. The points of no return page adds the ones that are not regions here, the Grymforge elevator and the descent into the Shadowfell, and explains which quests each one closes. The buildings inside these regions, from Rosymorn Monastery to the Temple of Bhaal, have their own pages in the dungeons guide, and the quests guide shows which quests a region holds and how many ways each can end.