There is a lot of thrilling stuff in Baldur’s Gate 3, a game I’m currently working towards my second attempt at completion. But there are also plenty of emotional moments that hit hard. Gods, for example, are mostly dicks, leaving previously ardent followers to feel embittered and filled with loss and uncertainty. The game is not particularly kind to the faithful.

But let’s talk about Arves and the fucking House of Grief.

The House of Grief is seemingly a clinic where you can have painful memories removed, though it’s really just a front for another shitty sect. Before you go in, you meet a man names Arves, who is staring off at a tree or the sky or something, fumbling about, unsure why he’s even there. You start asking him questions and he seems like someone who’s had their mind largely wiped.

So you go in and (if you’re like me) lay waste to the House of Grief. Fuck ‘em up, but good.

When the quest is done, however, Arves is left standing outside, a shell of a man, feeling something akin to loss but uncertain as to why. No additional dialogue options. And it seems he’s likely to remain their…forever.

And that just breaks me a little.