Baldur’s Gate 3’s Opening Cinematic City Is Not Actually Baldur’s Gate

Baldur’s Gate 3 has an epic, sweeping opening cutscene reminiscent of triple-A games of the past where a massive scene-setting cinematic was almost mandatory. During the cinematic, we witness a nautiloid fly through a city, using its tendrils to capture and imprison its inhabitants. The ship is then attacked by dragon-riding githyanki, who forces the illithid pilot to teleport to different locations to try and evade the attackers. Eventually, the nautiloid winds up in Avernus, which is where the game begins.

It’s a cool opening and sets the scene for the rest of the narrative; the party becoming embroiled in various illithid and gith conflicts. Interestingly, several commenters on a recent Reddit thread by DragonHeart_97 said they always believed the city from the opening was Baldur’s Gate itself. Considering that you’re playing a game called Baldur’s Gate, you would be forgiven for thinking you’re seeing the titular city in the opening. However, what you’re actually seeing is the city of Yartar, a thriving city north of Baldur’s Gate in the Dessarin Valley.

Amid the Savage Frontier

There are actually plenty of hints as to why the depicted city isn’t Baldur’s Gate. The guards in Yartar don’t have the same sigil as the Flaming Fist, Yartar is quite small compared to the massive scale of Baldur’s Gate and the people of Baldur’s Gate don’t mention an illithid attack when you finally arrive in the city during Act 3.

This was confirmed by Swen Vincke in a presentation at PAX East in 2020, where he said, “The city you saw was not Baldur’s Gate, it was Yartar. Goodbye Yartar.” It’s sort of a strange choice given that Yartar is not mentioned in the game, and you don’t meet any characters from the Nautiloid who claim to be from Yartar. There’s certainly a chance the cinematic was created before the narrative was set in stone, and Yartar was supposed to have a more prominent role than it ended up having.

Yartar isn’t exactly a prominent city in Forgotten Realms lore, either. The city was the setting of a couple of early ’90s video games, Gateway to the Savage Frontier and Treasures of the Savage Frontier, and has since appeared in a few adventure modules, like Storm King’s Thunder. It’s not exactly Waterdeep or Baldur’s Gate, though.

The commenters in the aforementioned thread reckon the icy landscape the nautiloid briefly passes through is the Spine of the World, where the Icewind Dale series is set. If that’s the case, it’s a nice callback to another Dungeons & Dragons video game series.

Baldur’s Gate 3

5.0/5

Released

August 3, 2023

ESRB

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