Swen Vincke, the director of the award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, has stated that the game’s cut content included more regions and an expanded second act that would’ve added a lot more playtime to its already gargantuan length.
In a new video interview with BAFTA (below), game director Swen Vincke talked a bit about some of the cut content that would’ve expanded Baldur’s Gate 3‘s central story. During the second act, players journey to Moonrise Towers to confront general Ketheric Thorm, one of the three big antagonists of the game. Vincke explained that Moonrise Towers was originally planned to be two towers, though the game only shipped with one tower in the final product.
Vincke explained:
“This is a really random tidbit, but Moonrise Towers used to be two towers. And now, we shipped with only one tower. And for a long time, there was actually the ruins of the second tower, and then we removed that also. So there was only one tower, but originally we planned on having two towers. The reason we removed the extra tower was purely productionally. It was just, the game was getting too big and so we had to cut that out.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 already has a handful of massive regions for players to explore during its three distinct acts but according to the director, developer Larian Studios initially planned to add “many more regions” to the game. Vincke stated that he feared the game would be too short because of all the cut content.
“You would be surprised to know that we actually had many more regions that we planned to make,” he said. “I was afraid the game was going to be too short originally, but I’ve notoriously always been very bad at judging the length of our games.”
Despite the cut content, Baldur’s Gate 3 ended up being quite a lengthy journey, taking players anywhere between 60-100 to complete the campaign and that’s not even taking into account the game’s excellent replay value. As history would dictate, the RPG ended up winning boatloads of awards – in fact, it won so many awards, Larian Studios said it affected the game’s development.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Source: BAFTA
