Swen Vincke, the director of Baldur’s Gate 3, was originally worried that the absolutely gigantic role-playing game would be too short.
It’s obviously astonishing to hear this in hindsight, knowing that a single playthrough can easily take over 100 hours and knowing how replayable the game is, but unfortunately Vincke said the following in an interview with BAFTA: “You’d be surprised to know that we actually had many more regions planned. I was originally worried that the game would be too short, but I’ve always been notoriously bad at estimating the length of our games.”
Ultimately, the developers at Larian realized they were in danger of making an RPG that was “too big” and so made some cuts to content that was originally part of the game. In particular, Vincke revealed that Moonrise Towers originally consisted of two towers, but was reduced to just one in the final version. At one point, the game also featured the ruins of the second tower, but these were also removed as Larian was concerned about the size of the production.
Clearly the designer’s instincts couldn’t have been better. It’s hard to say if it would have been better with more or less content, but as it is now, it feels incredibly ambitious without ever feeling unwieldy, even to me as a new player who first experienced the series with the latest entry. Don’t believe me; Vincke said in July that Baldur’s Gate 3 won so many awards that it began to “influence development,” forcing Larian to send “rotating teams” of developers to the ceremonies.
Still, it’s hard not to think back to when Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki said it would only take about 30 hours to complete Elden Ring. That estimate was so far off that he later neglected to estimate the length of the Elden Ring DLC.
Save the scum enemies, rejoice: This turn-based RPG is all about the dirty trick that we all definitely didn’t abuse in Baldur’s Gate 3.
