Baldur’s Gate 3’s director, Swen Vincke, has revealed that Larian Studios wanted to include Dispel Magic, but that it would have doubled the size of the game.
If there’s one thing that most Baldur’s Gate 3 players would agree on, it’s that the game has more than enough content to keep everyone happy. It might surprise you to hear, then, that one of the biggest and most content-packed games of 2023 was almostevenbigger thanks to one single spell that was cut late into development.
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That spell is Dispel Magic, a popular choice in Dungeons & Dragons that does exactly what it says on the tin by ending magic spells that have been cast on enemies and items, essentially acting as if the spell’s duration has expired. It can also be used to counter a spellcaster’s spell and even suppress the abilities of a magical item. Simply put, it’s an incredibly helpful spell for anyone working with magic and has a massive range of uses.
As reported by GamesRadar+, that massive range is exactly why it had to be cut from Baldur’s Gate 3.While being interviewed for the Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel, Baldur’s Gate 3’s director, Swen Vincke, was asked if there was anything that Larian Studios wanted to add to the game but wasn’t able to. Vincke quickly replied by saying that the team wanted to include Dispel Magic, but that it caused too many headaches and had too many variables to include properly.
The decision to remove Dispel Magic seemingly came quite late into the game’s development cycle, as Vincke notes that it was “on the table for a long time”, before becoming “too much” simply due to how much magic there is in the game. According to Vincke, internal playtesting would often result in the question of, “what if I come in and do Dispel Magic?”, which was an indicator that it was too big of a mechanic for the team to handle.
In fact, Vincke notes that Dispel Magic would have been such a big feature to include within Baldur’s Gate 3 that it “literally would have doubled the size of the game just to support that one spell properly”. Although it’s a shame to see such an iconic and used D&D spell not make it into Baldur’s Gate 3, Vincke notes that there are still some “traces” of Dispel Magic in the game from when the team intended to have it featured in the game.
Still, it’s not like Baldur’s Gate 3 needed to beanybigger, right? Maybe we should be grateful for the death of Dispel Magic.
