Following the long-awaited arrival of Patch 8 for Baldur's Gate 3, the Dungeons & Dragons-flavored RPG's final update, art director Alena Dubrovina reveals that Larian Studios originally had a very different art style planned for the game – once a "cartoony" one, in fact.
Speaking to CD Projekt Red, the studio behind RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 4, Dubrovina says as much in a new interview.
"We actually changed design direction at least two times," the art lead recalls. "And it was not just polish, but it was like a complete turnaround. And at first, we tried more stylized approaches, like I would say even a cartoony approach to match it closer to what we see in D&D books and D&D art."
That's when Larian moved onto the more realistic visuals closer to what Baldur's Gate 3 fans now know and love. "Then we tried a little bit of a more realistic, grounded approach, but then still keeping the stylized feel," explains Dubrovina. "Hard to describe, easier to show, I guess."
The studio wasn't satisfied yet: "And then we did some trials with cinematics and we thought, 'It's going to the right direction,' but we still weren't happy."
Throughout the process, the art director says, "there was no concrete plan in pre-production." Larian was simply "exploring in pre-production" and "trying things" as the style evolved, having "no idea, like, where, what we want to do," as Dubrovina puts it. She details the thought process each dev had at the time while designing the RPG: "Yeah, I want to make something cool, but we don't know how."
It's certainly a funny thought – the Baldur's Gate 3 companions in a more cartoony style – and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it myself, especially after witnessing similar, probably more extreme energy in videos like the official Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 8 animated short and its equally impressive preceding entries. I am, however, admittedly more than pleased with what Larian ended up releasing in the end, aesthetically. Astarion is perfect as-is, after all.
