Baldur’s Gate 3 game director Swen Vincke has said that in order to create the game’s Dungeons & Dragons experience, it had to account for the chaos of every sort of player.
Speaking in a recent interview with the official D&D YouTube channel, Vincke explained that Larian Studios had to act as the dungeon master of Baldur’s Gate 3 in order to control the many player outcomes and that the extensive early access program was a massive help (via GamesRadar).
“It was very much the core of the game when we started working on it, because it had to be a Dungeon & Dragons experience,” Vincke said, adding that it “is literally what you have at the tabletop. You come in as a game master and you don’t know what’s going to happen. You have an idea in your head but then chaos is going to take off and it’s going to go in all different kinds of directions than you expected, which is the fun part.”
One of the game’s core mechanics is the freedom it allows the player in almost anything. The RPG is designed specifically for a broad range of choices, with consequences and branching paths, and Vincke said that Larian adapted for all possibilities.
“There’s players that follow the critical path, and they’re happy because they get their really polished story experience,” he continued. “Then there’s the people that start killing the protagonist and antagonists instantly, and then are surprised that they can actually still continue playing. The story picks up and says ‘well, you did all this stuff, but here’s another protagonist for you to kill.'”
Vincke added that the team “didn’t play it safe” and the game’s early access period – which was released in 2020 and was playable up until the official launch last month – helped the team curate the D&D experience so it could “try to cover all eventualities and all permutations that come into it”.
“We apply that throughout the entire game,” he explained. “We didn’t play it safe. We said we’ll take risks. We know they will probably find a way to break the game, but we have this system of rules that we have for ourselves that allows it to fall back in a way that you will always be able to finish it. As a player you’ll know, ‘Hey, all the s**t that’s happening right now? That’s me. I did that. So I’m okay with it.'”
Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on PS5 and PC, and there’s a good chance that the RPG will be launching on Xbox Series X|S before December.
Baldur’s Gate 3 may be one of the best PC games of 2023. For more check out our list of every upcoming game to look forward to.