Will, Gale, and Shadowheart may have their own secrets, but the latest “character origin” comes out on top – and it’s a story its creator has long wanted to tell.
While the other protagonists of Baldur’s Gate 3 have predefined appearances, classes, and personalities, The Dark Urge is different. It doesn’t matter who you play – a dwarf mage or a dragonborn barbarian, their story will remain unchanged – and this is a very scary story. There’s a serial killer lurking in Dark Urge’s past, but you don’t remember him. All you know is that you have retained his urge to kill, and you will have to learn to deal with it.
In an interview with Play Magazine, game director Sven Vincke said he had wanted to tell the story for a long time: “I’ve always wanted to do a story about a serial killer who doesn’t remember being a serial killer.” However, it wasn’t until the BG3 writers got their hands on the Dark Urge idea that it began to materialize; Vincke says that “the writers embraced it, making it a much, much, much more original story.”
The Dark Urge remains shrouded in mystery, and what we’ve heard about the character with this “origin story” so far suggests that a lot of details will have to be pieced together in order to deal with the darkness in his heart. Vincke suggests that we’ll only get a definitive answer to this question once we get to the titular city at the heart of the game, noting that traveling to Baldur’s Gate, a city that was once terrorized by the god Baal, the lord of murder, certainly creates “an interesting combination.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a massive open world RPG from the creators of the Divinity: Original Sin series. Larian has announced that they are moving the PC version’s release date forward by a month from August 31st to August 3rd to avoid clashing with Bethesda’s Starfield, which is due out in early September. The PlayStation 5 version, meanwhile, has been slightly delayed until September 6, while the Xbox Series X and S versions remain without a release date (more on Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox delay here).
In an interview, Vincke said that according to the developers, a typical walkthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 takes between 75 and 100 hours. However, players who want to “do it all” should look forward to doubling that number.
