Dragon Age creator and CRPG veteran defends Baldur's Gate 3's cut content: "BG2 had a mountain of stuff cut"

Baldur's Gate veteran and Dragon Age creator David Gaider has outlined their experience with cut content, after Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian addressed the issue in a recent update.

In a blog post yesterday, the Baldur's Gate 3 studio addressed community concerns around evidence of 'cut content' in the game's third act. The developer said that some of what's being labeled as having been cut from the game is actually scenes and voice lines that didn't trigger, rather than having been outright removed. Some of that is set to be fixed, but much of the rest has been cut "because we didn't think it worked."

Not surprised to hear of the amount of stuff apparently cut from BG3. BG2 had a mountain of stuff cut over its development, some early and some even after lots of work had gone into it… almost every game does. Every DA game did. Heck, even Stray Gods had some considerable cuts.August 30, 2023

That particular aspect was noted by Gaider, who, as well as helping create Dragon Age during his time at BioWare, was also a writer on Baldur's Gate. In a tweet last night, Gaider said that he was "not surprised to hear of the amount of stuff apparently cut from BG3," not least because Baldur's Gate 2 "had a mountain of stuff cut over its development."

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Some of that content was cut early in the development process, but other parts were removed "even after lots of work had gone into it." That's not unique to the Baldur's Gate games, or even CRPGs - Gaider goes on to say that "almost every game" sees work cut even after substantial development time, noting his own experiences with the entire Dragon Age trilogy, as well as his recently-released RPG, Stray Gods.

Gaider also offers some advice for players thinking about content that's been "cut" from their favourite games, pointing out that 'late' cuts were probably just not working for the game, whether technically or conceptually, and that most cuts come so early that the ideas were never really in the game. Most interestingly, he claims that "most cuts can't be resurrected. It'd be easier to start over."

Whether that strikes true for Baldur's Gate 3 remains to be seen - Larian's commitment to reconsidering character epilogues suggests that there might be content that could be scraped up from the cutting room floor, but it might be some time before we get to find out how that will look.

Larian also teased two highly-requested features in yesterday's Baldur's Gate 3 blog.

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