More than three years after release, not all players have seen the location from Baldur's Gate 3's main menu

A gloomy temple with a giant skull greets everyone who launches Baldur's Gate 3, yet not every player is convinced it exists in the game itself. It does. It's the Temple of Bhaal, one of the key locations in Act 3.

The question popped up on Reddit more than three years after release. The game launched on PC in August 2023, then made its way to PS5 and Xbox Series.

The temple hides beneath the Lower City of Baldur's Gate. The story inevitably leads the hero there for a showdown with Orin the Red, a fanatical servant of the god of murder. The menu image looks noticeably different from the in-game version, though.

Scale and details are embellished for a dramatic shot, and the in-game camera can't be placed at that angle, so the skull is mostly what gives the place away.

The choice of background is hardly random. That skull is the symbol of Bhaal, and the whole series, going back to the first game in 1998, revolves around his offspring. For the Dark Urge, the most lore-heavy protagonist option, the temple sits at the center of the personal story.

That means the game shows the climax of this arc on the very first screen, long before character creation.

Plenty of players never recognize the temple because plenty of them never reach Act 3. Early access played a part, too: from October 2020 it was limited to Act 1, and some people ended up memorizing the Druid Grove by heart. Co-op makes things even funnier.

One group of four spent several months finishing Act 2 and promptly stalled in Act 3, while a couple playing solo in parallel stopped at roughly the same spot and switched to other games.

The menu hides a few more secrets. According to a popular theory, the knight in full plate armor leading the party down the steps is modeled on Larian head Swen Vincke, who has appeared in public in real armor more than once.