Baldur's Gate 3 Writers Based Shadowheart On Jason Bourne

thegamer.com:

Shadowheart from Baldur's Gate 3 might be one of the most popular gaming characters of the year. Everyone's romancing her at least, so she clearly has a lot of fans. As we've got to know her, the cleric of the evil goddess Shar has won us over with her wit and charms, so it's not surprising that the developers over at Larian are being asked how they approached her writing.

Turns out, Larian took inspiration from a very unexpected source. In an interview with IGN, Larian boss Swen Vincke admits that Shadowheart was pitched as the Jason Bourne of the party, in reference to her memory loss. While she's expanded out of this role since then, Vincke says this is how she was originally envisioned before she was fleshed out.

In the interview, Vincke discusses how many of the characters changed throughout the development of Baldur's Gate 3 and its early access run.

"Originally the idea was you met a bunch of party members that had absolutely no reason to trust you, but plenty of reasons to distrust you. We went a little bit too strong on that," says Vincke. "So we dumbed her down a little bit. Her trauma and the closure of Shar has always been the main thing."

He continues, getting into the main idea behind Shadowheart: "She started out actually as a... Well, it changed a little bit. She started out as a Jason Bourne, that was her original pitch, actually."

Shadowheart has been in Baldur's Gate 3 since it was released in early access in October 2020.

Vincke goes on to say that she "evolved" past this - no kidding - but it's still surprising to hear that Larian took inspiration from the Bourne franchise, of all places.

In case you missed out on Baldur's Gate 3's early access period, our favourite gothic cleric has changed a lot