"This was shoulders of giants stuff": Baldur's Gate 3 writer pays tribute to BioWare's legendary CRPGs

gamesradar.com:

Baldur's Gate 3's lead writer has paid tribute to the two previous games developed by BioWare in the D&D series, and says he hopes that Larian Studios has made its original developers proud.

Adam Smith, lead writer of Baldur's Gate 3, Adam Smith, praised Baldur's Gate and its sequel Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn in an interview with PC Gamer whilst discussing the character Jaheira.

Jaheira was first introduced in the original Baldur's Gate, and she's available as a companion for the player character throughout the events of both games. Jaheira appears in Baldur's Gate 3, 100 years since we last saw her in Baldur's Gate 2, and Smith talked about the process of taking BioWare's story and continuing it.

"I get very emotional with that, and that's partly because it is a reminder of my own past," Smith states, "but also this is literally BioWare's story and BioWare's character." He describes feeling the pressure of carrying on BioWare's legacy with Baldur's Gate 3 as "'shoulder of giants' stuff". "It was such a big shadow," he continues, "it was like 'do we ever look okay in this shadow?'"

Smith also speaks on initial conceptions that Baldur's Gate 3 was really Divinity: Original Sin 3, a sequel to Larian's own CRPG series. "We were all confident in ourselves to tell a story that we thought was very good," Smith says, "and we said 'no, we love Baldur's Gate, we want to make Baldur's Gate 3'... because so many of us did come up with it."

"It means a lot whenever I see anybody who was even vaguely associated with the original [Baldur's Gate] games being pleased, because we owe them a huge debt, and we hope we did them proud," Smith concludes, showing just how important the foundation of CRPGs laid out by BioWare was to