How the Baldur's Gate 3 character creator brings modern flair to old school fantasy

gamedeveloper.com:

Earlier this year, we caught up with Baldur's Gate 3 lead character artist Alena Dubrovina to discuss how Larian purpose-built an inclusive character creator for the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

Baldur's Gate 3 launched back in August to critical acclaim, but prior to that spent almost three years in early access. That soft launch period was indispensable when it came to incorporating feedback to ensure the options afforded to players would (hopefully) remain relevant for years to come.

Dubrovina explains the core pillars that prop up the creator are "player choice" and "staying true to the spirit of D&D" and noted many of the options included in the release version of Baldur's Gate 3 emerged during early access.

"We learned that we should always keep an open mind and be ready for anything," she explains. "The goal was to give players choices they would be excited about, inspire them to try some styles that they would want to try in real life but never dared.

"We wanted something that felt fresh and could stay relevant for at least some years to come. When I now see custom characters that are created online I’m amazed how cool they all look, they look special and really stand out from the NPCs you meet in the game, which is what we were hoping for."

Discussing how Larian's approach shifted over the years, Dubrovina says the eclectic denizens of Baldur's Gate 3 were initially more stylized, but noted some of those early models "didn't look right to us during dramatic cinematic dialogues."

"We had to push both our tech and models further to make them more realistic and relatable. After we got the visual look we wanted, we established a certain pipeline which ensured a very consistent artistic and technical execution of our