Baldur’s Gate 3: Exploring Design Decisions in Game Development
Baldur’s Gate 3 is set in a dense world full of lurking dangers. Players will often stumble upon lifeless bodies, some of which can be interacted with if you possess a party member with the spell 'Speak with Dead'. Although not all will have insightful intel to offer - especially if you are the one responsible for their lifeless state - some can reveal helpful nuggets of information.
Discussing the 'Speak with Dead' spell with Larian Studios
Larian Studios CEO and the game's director, Swen Vincke, has recently shed some light on an interesting method his team adopted to balance out this particular spell. It provides some insight into the abundance of headless bodies players have noted strewn across the Sword Coast.
In an interview, Vincke elaborated on the simple way Larian fine-tuned 'Speak with Dead'. Besides limiting players to a maximum of five questions, the game developers used a clever tactic to ensure not every body had something important to convey. “The trick we used is any dead that still has their head,” he told the interviewer, who dubbed it Larian’s “cheat.”
An Effective Solution
Considering the multitude of bodies littered throughout Baldur’s Gate 3, this creative workaround makes sense. There is already an abundance of dialogue in the game, and having to create additional content for every single body would have been impractical.
This also illuminates why the game has a significant number of bodies without heads. While it is expected that in a turbulent, warfare-ridden world some decapitations would occur, the game noticeably hosts more headless victims than one would normally anticipate.
Additional Insights from Vincke's Interview
The interview also posed to be a treasure trove of insights, as Vincke discussed a variety of topics related to the game's development. Lovers of the game should definitely check out our extensive coverage on Baldur’s Gate 3, which comprises the most recent reports, guides, and a lot more.