GamesRPGBaldur’s Gate 3Baldur’s Gate 3 dev explains in painstaking detail how and why players get to break the game: “The easy thing would be to block players … but we don’t like that at Larian"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGBaldur’s Gate 3Baldur’s Gate 3 dev explains in painstaking detail how and why players get to break the game: “The easy thing would be to block players … but we don’t like that at Larian"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
In a newly posted presentation forSofia Game Jam, Larian gameplay scripter Mihail Kostov outlined the work and thinking that goes into an RPG as freeform asBaldur’s Gate 3, focusing on the “edge cases” that Larian had to account for even if an incredibly small percentage of players might run into them. We’ve heard similar stories from Larian before, but Kostov offered an interesting nitty-gritty approach.
This comes on the heels of newly discovered content fromProxy Gate Tactician, who unearthednew fail-safes and a rare unsolved soft locktied to losing the all-important Netherstones in Baldur’s Gate 3. One of these safeguards, a group of kobolds that can recover your Netherstones from a destroyed factory in case you somehow left them behind pre-explosion, comes up in Kostov’s talk. The rest of the presentation is an equally fascinating look under the hood of a famously detailed RPG.Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3, up to and including Act 3, ahead.
Here comes the ‘but’ looming over this situation: there are a lot of ways to break Baldur’s Gate 3. Kostov shared a laundry list of challenges that will no-doubt strike fear into the hearts of game devs:
Even then, Kostov says “there are many, many more, that’s just a few.” But these factors alone frame an array of potential exploits and loopholes, which come up later in the talk.
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
What if a necessary NPC is missing from a quest due to the complications of another quest – or, perhaps, an untimely demise due to a freak accident where their head landed on your hammer? In this case Larian will often use another character you’ve met before to fill in, and if that character’s dead,anotherone.If they’re also dead or MIA, create a new one if needed. Kostov argues that it’s okay for the overall fidelity of each situation to drop as the scenarios become increasingly niche – and even then, “not all edge cases, if missed, can be fixed in the best way” – as long as everything is tonally consistent and checks the essential boxes.
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“The easy thing would be to block players from using Heat Metal on Voss,” Kostov explains. “But we don’t like that at Larian. We love this sort of stuff so let’s fully support it. Let players keep the cool weapon. They found a way to exploit the game, let them have it, it’s awesome. And rewrite Laezel’s dialog to make sure it works in Act 1. This might mean recording new lines, it might mean hiding some of the lines, but supporting the player’s creativity is awesome. We found out laterthere’s actually a wiki pagefor this exploit. It’s super long too. That’s awesome.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7 won’t be the RPG’s final update after all, as Larian promises extra support including cross-play and photo mode.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
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