One thing I will note about 'The Dark Urge' and the concept around it...
I hope when Larian makes DOS3 or BG4 (whatever their next project is) they end up altering the character creation system. I hope they do away with origin characters and instead make more recruitable companions as they seem to take significantly less work. I would rather have more recruitable companions to play along with custom characters than any origin characters.
Then I hope rather than just having a single custom backstory they have multiple dark urge type custom origins to choose from that impact the game as you play. For instance they could have (and these are all very basic)...
The Commoner - There has been nothing particularly special about your life. You are a lowly peasant in the great kingdom - farming, selling wares or raising a family. This is the story of your rise to being a hero or becoming a villain.
The Hero - You are well known throughout the realms as someone who slays evil creatures and helps people. You will be recognized wherever you go. Are you the hero they praise or is their faith in you misguided?
The Pact - You have made a pact with a powerful being to gain great power at the cost of personal freedom. Will you continue to obey the dark creature you are pledged to or break free?
The Dark Urge - Murder urges. Will you give in or resist?
So you essentially want less narrative structure and interaction with your companions and do not want their story to really impact the overall plot. Non-Origin characters, ala OG Baldur's Gate games had party banter, and brief 'aside' conversations (some of which were romance scenes), a short personal questline, and an ending slide or two. That was the full extent of their involvement with the game's narrative and plot. I'm pretty sure the reason that Larian introduced them (Origin characters) is that is a fascinating aspect of a game to be able to experience two perceptive realities of a character, both from the first person and third person. So, if you choose the origin character, you are the one visited by the deity, or antagonist, while as your own character, they may simply tell you about it. It creates an additional narrative layer to a game. By getting rid of it, you are just removing one of those perceptual realities and thereby simply lessening the options and story depth of the game. You can simply choose not to play as one, and then you remove one of those realities by default.
Now, the amount of time and energy that goes into their creation is really what this is about, since probably one Origin character takes up the same amount of time as creating 5 other disembodied companions with the same amount of resources, perhaps more.
