Is it just me, or are the big battles in Act 3 much easier than in Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3?

I am The I'm close to finishing Baldur's Gate 3, and if I'd known it would be this easy to plow through the second half of the game's third act, I would have done it months ago. When I took a brief break from Larian's masterpiece that inadvertently turned into a longer hiatus, one of the things that held me back was the fear that the final hours of Act 3 would be a repeat of the long struggle that ended Act 2.

Baldur's Gate 3 is most difficult in Act 2

But I've now killed Gortash and Orin (and heard the Netherbrain boss fight isn't as hard as you'd expect) and so far nothing has challenged me as much as running the gauntlet to and through Ketheric Thorm in the Shadow-Cursed Lands.

I attempted the final boss fight, Ketheric, more times than I can count, and it was the only time in the game that I had to dial the difficulty down a notch. That wasn't the only time Act 2 really tested me—I worked my ass off to defeat the hordes of evil trees in the Last Light Inn. I spent hours trying to figure out how to wrest the orb from Yurgir the Orthon. I tried every possible flanking maneuver to win the fight on the first floor of the Moonrise Towers. This act really tested me.

That Act 3 is a little less difficult in part may be because the game wants to give you a victory lap. If you're anything like me, it took over a hundred hours to get this far. While the average time to finish the main game is listed on HowLongToBeat.com as just 68 hours (and 112 hours if you want to see the main campaign and some side quests), both estimates seem dozens of hours too low to me. That's the longest I've ever spent on a game just to finish it. At this point, I'm less looking for challenges and more for congratulations. I did it, give me my flowers.

Act 3 offers many more opportunities to gain experience

But I think this difference in difficulty has more to do with the fact that Act 3 is a sprawling ant colony, while Act 2 is a single, dark corridor. There are so many tunnels to get lost in in Act 3 that you're bound to come out a little stronger. While Act 2 was focused on getting you to the final battle with Ketheric, Act 3 offers a seemingly endless supply of key confrontations. There's Cazador, Lorroakan, Ansur, the Iron Throne, Mystic Carrion, the serial killers, Gortash, Orin, and more. None of these fights are easy to ignore, and I rarely tackled one without taking a long break first.

But each important battle will net you XP or helpful items that better prepare you for the next one. The sheer number of hard battles you have to fight means they get progressively less hard. Cazador was the first big battle I fought after reaching Baldur's Gate, and it was by far the hardest. When that was over, I felt like a snowball gaining mass as it rolled down a hill, steamrolling each new boss in less time than the last. My party is a well-oiled machine… mostly just passing the ball to Karlach and watching as she covers up our enemies and rains down Reckless Attacks until they're all at our feet.

So after about 160 hours, I'm finally ready to bring this thing home. I've seen the sights, won the battles, and cast plenty of plagues. As I try to wrap this thing up, I'm not even that worried about how long it's going to take. Netherbrain… prepare for your lobotomy.