As opposed to everyone taking the author of this bloody list at their word? With it's claims of whole game regions that were supposedly just removed, despite the total lack of sources to justify such claims.
Larian aren't saying nothing is cut. Of course things are cut as changes are made throughout development. Bits of those abandoned ideas can be dug up through datamining (I've seen the thread, thanks). But notice how the claims in the list are presented as things that were "meant" to be in the game as opposed to things that got changed at some point in the development process.
It's hardly surprising they are being defensive about it, when there's unsubstantiated rumours being spread around that they lopped off big chunks of the game to hit a release deadline. After all the hard work, I'd be mad as hell about it myself.
Well,
why is everyone so happy to accept a badly researched and unsourced list as gospel? Why did it spread like wildfire? Those are the questions people, including Larian themselves, should be asking. Like, this list can be disassembled by just checking some Reddit posts or playing parts of the game itself. Some parts of it can't, sure, but I'd argue they're irrelevant. The reason why people are getting up in arms about "cut content" is because a bunch of people have endured an unprecedented hype cycle (even Cyberpunk didn't have people coming out and suggesting Larian was a unique animal -- oh, how that has aged), put a hundred hours into a CRPT, and found it to be... just the same as any other big name CRPG release in recent memory. A front-loaded first act, some great set pieces throughout the second, and all of it leading to a climax that is less a tapestry and more some dangling narrative threads, simply too much pointless combat instead of a genuine victory lap, and an ending that comes down to a decisions you made about ten minutes previously. Turns out Larian wasn't unique, they were a company the same as any other and they were beholden to much the same pressures.
It's also very likely they lopped off big chunks of their game to hit a release deadline. That's basically the constant of any game that gets released ever, especially CRPGs. We know that a bunch of races like Warforged had dialogue for a lot of the game, including Daisy dreams. Like, yeah, Larian didn't say nothing had been cut, they just figured they needed to specify there was no "cut content" but just "content they didn't want to release." Larian's trying to regain control of the narrative, but they won't -- they can't. The issue isn't that content was cut or removed or whatever, the issue is that a lot of people are upset that good guy Larian isn't really much different to Obsidian, Bioware, Bungie, Blizzard, CDProjekt Red or whoever else. And the irony is that every day Larian doesn't come out and honestly discuss what happened during development, because something clearly did, then trust will continue to erode.
Because "it's not cut content, it's sparkling content we didn't want to release" doesn't actually do anything to disabuse people of the notion that material was cut, much less begin quelling the discontent with the end product that's fuelling it. And everyone knows Larian can't stand by artistic integrity, because BG3's development has been defined by both a. Larian actually making changes based on loud feedback and b. acting as if they make changes based on loud feedback. That is to say, putting the desires of the audience above whatever their original plan were, even when those plans were well-along in development. But if you give a bunch of Internet people years and years of rope, don't be surprised when they string you up with it. Not to abuse a cliche, but anyone in a creative industry should know that fans don't know what they want, and letting them lead you around by the nose just ends up with situations just like this.
