Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Opinions on the main plot writing?

Whenever writers talk about their process, especially in regards to criticism or earlier drafts, they are probably lying. This is because they are in a tough situation. For example, Larian faces this dilemma -- say the Emperor was always present and implemented as intended, even though he's clearly sub-par and inconsistent, or admit that their storyline underwent massive revisions and alterations. Which brings the whole edifice under attack. Like, why did they spend so much time presenting a particular story in EA? Did they change it? Was it always a red herring? Did they have massive scope creep?

That said, it's also important to go over their words with a fine tooth comb because they may not be lying but rather just being very precise with their answers. For example...


The interviewer is a dummy, basically, and doesn't understand the difference between the Guardian/Emperor, Daisy, and what was datamined. So, the question should not be 'The Emperor was going to be a totally different character?' but 'The dream visitor wasn't tied to the Emperor at all?' This allows Swen and Adam to tell the truth and say the Emperor was never a different character. Because he probably wasn't. I suspect Balduran/The Emperor was always involved in the story, but I strongly suspect he had a different role. As a double agent and, potentially, the guy who tadpoled you. This aligns broadly with Swen's comments that they cut some of his more manipulative aspects. Look at what they're not saying.

The other thing is that I know people at Larian IRL who've explicitly told me the Emperor was a late addition to the game, included specifically to encourage the player to engage with the tadpole powers Larian had crafted. Again, this is not something Larian's creative heads will go on record as stating in an interview. Really, can you imagine Swen going 'Yeah, so we invented these awesome tadpole powers and a plot that really only worked if the player used them, and we couldn't manage to craft a way for the story to work without them, so we came up with this guy who 'but thou musts' them constantly?'

Baldur's Gate 3's main plot is really not good. I won't repeat too much because a lot of people have covered it, but there are a lot of issues. It's apparent in how the antagonists barely do anything and the tadpole abruptly shifts from 'get this out of your head' to 'cool superpowers, bro.' It's apparent in how the "rules" for anything are unclear and depend on copious amounts of exposition. It's apparent in how the dramatic Elder Brain reveal can be spoiled by a book, or how Gortash's diary doesn't make sense with the opening cutscene. It's apparent in how heavily they rewrote during early access. It's apparent in what was datamined. It's apparent in how the three acts are basically disconnected from each other. It's apparent in how their 'always there from the start' Emperor abruptly backflips to join the Elder Brain for no reason. It's apparent in how some of the biggest moments can be skipped to no ill effect and how the story presents the Mountain Pass as an alternate to the Underdark. It's apparent in the pre-release and tie-in material changing.

The way I understand BG3's main plot development is that the writers proceeded in an Act 1 -> Act 2 -> Act 3 fashion, without much consideration for the overall story they were building -- that is to say, no one was paying attention to the overall arc. It was big ideas and shooting for the moon. Then, as they actually had to bring the story to a climax, they realized that they had far too many permutations to deal with, too broad a scope, and they were spooked by the negative feedback some of their core ideas had gotten (Daisy, less friendly characters, harder/stricter choices, tadpoles being a two-edged sword.) Things like Karlach hint at this where they've mentioned they had no idea what kind of character Karlach was from class to personality and it was only when the voice actress was so funny and goofy and didn't like recording her as grim and taciturn that they figured her out. And this was so late that the infernal engine thing is noticeably barebones, both in plotting and cutscene direction, and playing as Karlach does not at all account for her not being able to touch anyone or anything. And arguably how Karlach feels like a Reddit self-insert rather than someone who lives in the world.

You can also look at Gale where the game abruptly lets you see his chat with Mystra despite telling you that you won't see it, because the writers really needed you to see it for things to make sense. As far as I'm aware, it's the only time you break away from your character's perspective to see a conversation you're not privy to. When, if they were true to their idea of replayability and origin characters, it's nakedly obvious that non-Gales would have to take his word for what he and Mystra talked about. Are you really able to trust that the conversation went as he said it did?

My understanding is also that Adam Smith, the lead writer, had no credits prior to Baldur's Gate 3. That's to say, he's exactly the sort of creative who might end up with his reach exceeding his grasp. Combine that with Larian wanting to outdo what they'd done before, in a universe they had no experience with... It's easy to see how you'd end up with a truncated, shallow skeleton of a main plot. Either way, I wouldn't count on them ever being honest about it 'on the record.'