During Devcom, the developer conference before Gamescom in Cologne, Cinematic Director Jason Latino spoke about his work on Baldur’s Gate 3. There was a scene in Act 1 that he didn’t want to include and he explains why it made it into the game anyway.
What kind of scene is this? The scene in question takes place in Act 1 in the middle of the goblin camp. If you visit them and enter the ruins, you will meet the hobgoblin Ragzlin in one of the back rooms.
Ragzlin stands over a dead mind flayer and plans to use a ceremony to extract information from the corpse using the Speak with Dead spell. When the scene is triggered, you and your group are automatically part of the whole thing and can influence the outcome.
MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski heard the information for this article when she visited the Devcom panel Chaos Menu or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hug The Bear in Cologne. Together with the lead of community management at GameStar, GamePro and MeinMMO Marylin Marx, she summarizes the talk in the video:
Cinematics in Baldur’s Gate 3 – How Bear Love Was Created and Why a Developer Hates a Certain Scene
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Why does the developer hate the scene? Jason Lation says in his talk that he hated the scene and that no one hated it as much as he did. There were various reasons for this:
Additionally, there was apparently no budget for the scene and it took them a total of 10 to 15 full working days to animate everything to their full satisfaction.
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What were the developer’s thoughts? Lation’s biggest concern was that the scene wouldn’t be good. They were a new team working with completely new tools. The scene might have been a good idea, but it came at a bad time.
What if Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t look finished after three years in Early Access? What if it gets bad press? And if the writing team sets a task that Cinematics can’t handle, Cinematics is in trouble.
Ultimately, Jason Lation asked himself: What if I’m not ready for AAA?
Almost 15 working days later: Habemus Cutscene
How did the scene make it into the game? For Larian’s cinematic director, a change in perspective finally made the difference. Instead of thinking about his own problems, worries and the logistics behind creating the game, he asked himself what the player would expect: How cool would this scene be for the player?
With this new mindset, he and the team finally set about implementing the scene to the best of their knowledge and belief.
The team is still working according to this mantra today: Baldur’s Gate 3 is still regularly updated with small and large updates. Most recently there was even a teaser for a new, evil ending: Baldur’s Gate 3 shows a new, evil ending – and it is really dark