Update - 25/06/2025: Larian's reached out to confirm that Karlach's ending was, in fact, made in response to the game's playerbase, with Michael Douse additionally clarifying on X that "Karlach's final ending was indeed in response to fan feedback, with conversations starting around August 2023." Presumably late August, given the game's initial release [[link]] date of August 3.
Either way, Larian's turnaround was blisteringly fast [[link]] to've given Béart the impression the studio had those changes in the chamber. Original story follows.
Baldur's Gate 3 was one of the best RPGs of the decade when it came out—and that accolade was only polished and shined in the ensuing months as Larian added patches to stitch up its wobbly ending. The biggest of these is, naturally, the epilogue—but there were a couple of minor additions before Patch 5, too.
For instance, Karlach got a whole new punk-rock conclusion that (spoilers, obviously) saw her light up a cigarette and charge a horde of devils—returning to Avernus for another chance at life with her new friends.
The wisdom of the crowd, and a little bit of Larian's own words, would have you believe the sharp turnaround was due to fan outcries—for context, release-Karlach's ending was super sudden. If you chose to go back to hell with her, she'd essentially say 'Okay, let's go', fade to black, and then that was it.
But in an interview with PCG's Ted Litchfield, Karlach's voice actor, Samantha Béart, says it was all in the works. Fielding the question to her on my behalf, Béart responds "Thank you, Harvey, for asking that" (you're welcome) "... the fans had no influence on me coming back for that. That was on the table as soon as it was out."
As Béart puts it—in more professional, polite words—it was mostly Starfield's fault. Larian deftly dodged out of the way of Bethesda's big RPG back in 2023, releasing the game a month early. Given how Starfield turned out, I reckon Larian would've been fine, but most studios were understandably quaking in their Boots of Speed over, well, Skyrim in space.
"So Starfield was going to come out [[link]] on the same date, right? And, then Larian went 'We're going to bring it out a month early' … And yeah, I don't think we expected people to rush to the end as quickly as they did and put everything up on YouTube."
Even then, that still leaves Karlach's better epilogue as something cooked up by Larian in response to fan outcries, surely? Béart's not so sure: "Pretty much as soon as it was out, I got a call—people were still in the character creator when I got the call to come back in and do an additional ending for it, let's put it that way. And then it took about a month to implement it, if I set the clock correctly."
All in all, Béart says "it was all very normal—it looks like, from the outside, that people had a big influence over it. But no, it was very much planned I'm afraid," they add, laughing: "I feel they anticipated it, it was playtested and everything."
So there you have it. Larian has a well-earned reputation for doing things based on player feedback—see the years that Baldur's Gate 3 was in early access, for one—but in this case, Karlach's cig-smoking, rock-and-roll ending was always in the books. Unlike the goblin they almost voiced.
