Baldur's Gate 3 cinematic animation lead Jim Southworth has died: 'We will all forever have a Jim-shaped hole in our lives'
Larian Studios announced on Monday that Jim Southworth, who led the Baldur's Gate 3 cinematic animation team, has died. He was 56 years old, and had been diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2022.
«Jim was always ready to join in the fun,» said Larian UK studio head James Austin in a statement sent to PC Gamer. «Friends with everyone in the team. Eager to be with his animators yet old enough to be their father. He loved making games, and we loved making them with him. We will miss him greatly.»
Among Southworth's other credits in his multi-decade career are sandbox MMO Boundless, multiple PlayStation EyeToy games and the early PSVR development, and '90s animated series The Animals of Farthing Wood. He worked on Baldur's Gate 3 for five years, starting in 2019.
Earlier this year, we awarded Baldur's Gate 3 one of the highest review scores in PC Gamer's history, a decision that had a great deal to do with the RPG's now-beloved companion and supporting characters, who are summoned into being by a combination of great scriptwriting, acting, and animation. Essential to that effort were Southworth and the cinematic animation team he established, led, and grew to encompass a worldwide staff «from Quebec to Kuala Lumpur, with Dublin and Guildford in between,» says Larian. The studio credits Southworth with «creating the foundations» on which Baldur's Gate 3's cinematic animation was built.
To know Jim was to know a friend, a mentor, a father figure, a leader, a comedian and an all-round monumental human.
PC Gamer received recollections about Southworth from a number of his colleagues at Larian, and his coworkers emphasized not just his professional virtues—Southworth's «depth of knowledge and willingness to help were second to
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