Baldur's Gate 3

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Baldur's Gate 3 reached players on the 3rd of August 2023, ending a development that had nearly not started at all. Wizards of the Coast, the publisher behind Dungeons and Dragons, turned down Larian Studios' first request to make the game back in 2014. The Belgian developer was told they lacked the experience for a franchise that old and that beloved.

  In the game, a group of strangers wake up with parasitic creatures lodged in their skulls, placed there by a race of alien beings called mind flayers. Those parasites should reshape their hosts into something inhuman. They do not, at least not yet, and the survivors band together to find a cure. Players steer every decision that follows.

  What persuaded Wizards of the Coast to change their minds is worth understanding. What the production demanded of those who made it is another question entirely. And why the finished game earned the reputation it did is a third.

• 2. The Twenty-Sided Die

  ›

  A four-sided initiative roll determines who acts first whenever combat begins in Baldur's Gate 3. From that point, the game runs on the fifth edition rules of Dungeons and Dragons, adapted almost directly from the tabletop. Outcomes across the whole experience, from sword attacks to persuasion attempts to lockpicking, are resolved by a twenty-sided die.

  Rolling two dice and keeping the better result is called advantage in Baldur's Gate 3; keeping the worse is called disadvantage. A character's skills and abilities can add to the raw number, improving the odds. Players can see the percentage chance that an attack will land before committing to it.

  Turn-based combat gives each character three resources per round: an action, a bonus action, and a movement allowance. Major instructions, like attacking with a sword or casting a spell, consume the action. Smaller commands, like jumping or drinking a potion, use only the bonus action. Combat ends when all enemies are defeated, or when characters move far enough away.

  Explosive barrels scattered through the world can be detonated at strategic moments. Weapons can be dipped in poison before an attack. Elemental combinations interact: applying grease then fire causes a target to burn across multiple turns. A fire arrow shot at an enemy standing on ice melts the surface into water instead.

  The bard class, described in the game as charisma-focused, is particularly suited to avoiding combat through dialogue. Conversations include skill checks resolved by the same twenty-sided die. Dialogue options span persuasion, intimidation, and deception. Players can also initiate combat by selecting an aggressive dialogue option rather than drawing a weapon.

  Players set up camp across 17 distinct locations, contextually placed depending on where in the world they stand. A non-player character named Withers, stationed at camp, allows a full rebuild of any character's class and statistics. Characters level up to a maximum of 12, below the tabletop game's cap of 20, and can take levels in a second class through multiclassing.

  The game holds 288 distinct quests, some mutually exclusive, some spanning multiple narrative arcs. Almost any character can die, including those integral to the story. Among the ten companions, each carries a personal side quest of their own.

• 3. A Cast of Hundreds

  ›

  Neil Newbon, who voiced the vampire spawn rogue Astarion, drew partly on the harlequin figure of commedia dell'arte for his portrayal. Astarion is written by Stephen Rooney and is one of six characters players can choose as their starting protagonist. He became the second most selected among that group.

  The most popular protagonist choice was Gale, a human wizard from the city of Waterdeep, voiced by Tim Downie. Shadowheart, a half-elf cleric, was portrayed by Jennifer English and written by John Corcoran. She was originally conceived as a Jason Bourne-style character with no memory of her past, and she became the game's most popular romance option.

  Lae'zel, a githyanki fighter, is the first companion a player encounters. Devora Wilde portrayed her, with Kevin VanOrd as her lead writer. According to studio head Swen Vincke, VanOrd found Lae'zel's voice early in development, and she changed least of all the companions across the full production.

  Karlach, a tiefling barbarian, was heavily revised during development. According to Samantha Béart, who voiced her, early versions were too similar to Lae'zel. Wyll, a human warlock, had his voice actor replaced following the early access period. Theo Solomon voiced him in the final release, after extensive rewrites of the character.

  The game's narrator, Amelia Tyler, functions as a dungeon master observing and commenting on everything the player encounters. Larian had originally planned for the narration to carry contempt. Tyler's deadpan delivery impressed them enough to change direction entirely.

  Jaheira, a half-elf druid voiced by Tracy Wiles, first appeared in Baldur's Gate in 1998. Minsc, a human ranger voiced by Matthew Mercer, shares that history. Minsc carries a hamster named Boo.

  Among the antagonists, J. K. Simmons portrayed Ketheric Thorm, a tragic villain planned as recruitable in early development. Jason Isaacs and Maggie Robertson portray Enver Gortash and Orin the Red. Andrew Wincott's portrayal of the devil Raphael was shaped by Shakespeare's Iago.

  Halsin, a wood elf druid voiced by Dave Jones, was not recruitable during early access. Player response was strong enough that Larian built him into a full companion role before the final release. The continuous rewriting that process required meant voice actors returned to the recording studio repeatedly across the development.

• 4. Six Years in the Making

  ›

  The Baldur's Gate franchise began in 1995, when TSR, Inc. approached publisher Interplay Entertainment about a Dungeons and Dragons video game. TSR was the predecessor to Wizards of the Coast. BioWare agreed to develop the title, having already partnered with Interplay on Shattered Steel in 1996.

  The original game was titled Iron Throne before Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo suggested the name Baldur's Gate. BioWare delivered it a year behind schedule in 1998. A sequel, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, followed in 2000.

  A third game in the series was cancelled in 2003 when Interplay lost the rights to publish it on PC. That cancelled title, subtitled The Black Hound, had been developed by Black Isle Studios. Beamdog later produced enhanced editions of the first two games. They also released a large expansion, Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, in 2016. A third mainline entry remained undeveloped for over a decade, with multiple companies competing for the rights.

  Shortly before the release of Divinity: Original Sin II in 2017, Wizards of the Coast had seen prerelease footage and asked Larian for a pitch. Vincke drafted a design document in a hotel room with several designers and writers over roughly a month. The pitch was scheduled for the same day Original Sin II launched.

  WotC did not approve that pitch, but gave Larian more time to develop it further. A later version was received positively, and the licence was granted. In October 2019, Interplay's Brian Fargo wrote on Twitter that he knew who was making Baldur's Gate 3, without naming Larian directly.

  Larian viewed Baldur's Gate alongside Fallout and Ultima as properties capable of supporting triple-A production values, budget, and marketing. Cinematic close-up dialogue sequences required new internal teams for cinematics quality assurance and lighting. Clothing textures had to read clearly from both close-up and distant camera positions because of the shifting perspective.

  The studio's headcount grew from around 140 employees in 2017 to over 450 by 2023. Industry journalist Jason Schreier described Larian as a 'unicorn': large enough for triple-A development, but privately owned. As a private company, Larian was not subject to pressure to add microtransactions or battle passes.

  Larian released the game's first act in early access in October 2020. The early access had over 2.5 million players, with the resulting revenue sustaining the studio. During this period, the game's Steam user reviews fell below 75%, which Vincke described as a 'disaster.'

  In March 2023, staff were concerned the game might be delayed to avoid competition with Bethesda Softworks' Starfield. Vincke accelerated the Windows release by four weeks and delayed the PlayStation 5 version by one week. A separate issue arose with the Xbox version. Split-screen co-operative play performed differently between the Series X and Series S, violating Microsoft's feature parity rules. Vincke met Microsoft Games executive Phil Spencer in person at Gamescom. They arranged a compromise allowing the game to launch on Xbox without split-screen support on the Series S.

  The COVID-19 pandemic slowed productivity, created communication problems, and prevented performance motion capture for stretches of the production. The Russian invasion of Ukraine led to the closure of Larian's Saint Petersburg office. The studio worked with embassies and consulates to support relocation, and 90% of the Saint Petersburg employees moved to other Larian offices. Vincke called Baldur's Gate 3 Larian's 'Covid game.'

  Cinematics lead Jim Southworth died shortly after the game's release. The credits carry a dedication to him.

• 5. Writing the World

  ›

  Dungeons and Dragons creative director Mike Mearls described the collaboration with Larian as feeling like a natural extension of the WotC team. Mearls said both companies anticipated that fifth-edition rules would require adjustment in a video game context, and Larian's changes to established lore were welcomed.

  Vincke suggested mind flayers as the game's central antagonists after seeing an illustration in Volo's Guide to Monsters. The transformation from human to mind flayer had not been documented by WotC. Larian devised a seven-day timeline for the process, inspired by body horror and the films of David Cronenberg. Writer Adam Smith noted that WotC had developed the period between Baldur's Gate II and the new game, because the region was central to the Forgotten Realms setting.

  Two London-based studios handled motion capture throughout the production. All 248 voice actors performed the motion capture for their own characters. Vincke estimated the total dialogue at 1.5 million words in 2020. By 2024, he had revised the line count to 1.3 million. He also said the game contained more than 140 hours of cutscenes.

  Writers worked on ending dialogue and descriptions for over a year to support more than 170 distinct ending variations. An expanded epilogue added in December 2023 contained over 3,500 new lines of dialogue. An early multiplayer feature that allowed players to collaboratively role-play in-game was removed because of the complexity it introduced.

  Writer Adam Smith described the team's creative approach as 'reactive': tracking which choices players made most frequently, then letting those patterns guide writing decisions. Companions including Shadowheart and Lae'zel were made less hostile to the player as a direct result. Larian encouraged the main voice cast to engage with fans publicly, which Devora Wilde described as unusual practice in the game industry.

  The April 2025 final patch introduced twelve new sub-classes alongside a photo mode, cross-platform play, and split-screen co-operative play for Xbox Series S. Jasmine Gould-Wilson wrote that GamesRadar+ could not name Baldur's Gate 3 as their 2024 game of the year despite those additions, because the game's initial release predated 2024.

• 6. Every Major Award

  ›

  Metacritic recorded universal acclaim for Baldur's Gate 3, with 98% of critics recommending it on the aggregator OpenCritic. Critics praised the game's scope and detail and frequently compared the experience to playing with a skilled tabletop dungeon master. Polygon's Gita Jackson called the game a 'masterpiece,' with the qualification that some limits came from the tabletop system it adapted.

  IGN's Leana Hafer praised the side quests as strong, and reviewer Allen Van Aken highlighted the variety of ways quests could resolve. Ali Jones wrote that companions' personalities contrasted well with their character classes. She described Shadowheart as a healer 'serving a goddess of darkness and loss'; Karlach as a traumatised barbarian 'determined to draw on joy.' Jackson praised Astarion's embrace of his own freedom as an example of the companions' reactivity.

  Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia flagged substantial performance drops in the game's third act, caused by the density of the city environment. Writing for Digital Spy, Jess Lee reported that two companions reacted with relationship-ending anger to a decision and then forgot the incident entirely. Several reviewers described the third act as less polished than the preceding two, and bug complaints persisted months beyond the initial release.

  In April 2024, Baldur's Gate 3 became the first title to win Game of the Year at all five major ceremonies. Those five were the Golden Joystick Awards, the Game Developers Choice Awards, the D.I.C.E. Awards, the BAFTAs, and The Game Awards. At the Golden Joystick Awards, the game broke the previous record with seven wins. Those included Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, and Studio of the Year for Larian. The game also won the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Game or Interactive Work and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Video Game.

  Neil Newbon won Best Performance at The Game Awards and Best Supporting Performer at the Golden Joystick Awards for his portrayal of Astarion. Andrew Wincott won the BAFTA for Performer in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Raphael. Composer Borislav Slavov had received Hollywood Music in Media Awards nominations in 2020 and 2021 for individual songs. He went on to win the Music category at the BAFTAs for the full score.

  Larian's publishing director Michael Douse reported over 10 million players by February 2024. The Irish Independent reported in November 2024 that Larian's 2023 pre-tax profit was €249 million, a twentyfold rise over the previous year. Hasbro disclosed in a Q4 2023 earnings call that the game had earned it $90 million. By the end of 2025, sales had exceeded 20 million copies. Vincke said the studio began sending rotating groups of staff to awards ceremonies. The volume of wins had started to affect the studio's ability to develop software.

  HBO announced a television series continuing the story of Baldur's Gate 3. The series would be helmed by Craig Mazin, co-creator of the network's adaptation of The Last of Us. Mazin indicated he would contact the voice cast about their interest in being involved. Vincke said Mazin and HBO had sought Larian's input, and described the studio's reaction as excitement.