The companions who be a part of you on Baldur’s Gate 3’s epic journey alongside the Sword Coast are a fantastic bunch, however one character positively acquired the quick finish of the stick: Wyll. The Warlock was famously rewritten forward of the sport’s launch in 2023 when developer Larian determined his story within the early entry launch wasn’t fairly working. Some issues stayed the identical, equivalent to his character design, Warlock standing, and the place the participant would finally recruit him, however his story was utterly revamped, his voice actor was modified, and he was given ties to different characters, equivalent to Tiefling celebration member Karlach.
In an ongoing Reddit AMA, the workforce at Larian supplied some perception into the method and likewise defined why Wyll has notably much less content material than different celebration members in consequence. It seems Wyll’s story was lastly coming collectively proper when most different members of the participant’s touring celebration have been being solidified, and a few storylines the workforce deliberate on implementing him into ended up being reduce. Senior author Kevin VanOrd additionally explains that he had well being points throughout a few of these iteration phases, which meant that he misplaced valuable time that was meant to be spent fleshing out Wyll’s position. Total, it appears like VanOrd loves the character however needs he might have accomplished extra with him.
As you most likely know, we weren’t connecting with Wyll’s Early Entry recruitment and preliminary questing, so we began over at a degree when many of the different companion tales have been pretty stable. A variety of selections got here later in improvement than was splendid – and there was a key scenario close to Baldur’s Gate that I meant to closely contain Wyll in (the Crimson Warfare School) that acquired reduce. That meant again to the drafting board once more. We ultimately tied him to Duke Ravengard and began to work on that factor of his arc simply in time for me to get unexpectedly in poor health. I used to be out of the workplace for fairly some time, and once more after the epilogue’s launch.
I believe that Ansur’s lair was Swen’s thought – we did have the assets for a standalone dungeon, so we started working on tying Wyll to the Wyrmway, however I couldn’t get greater than a dungeon boss out of it. As soon as the conditions have been in place, that was that – I needed to begin writing them.
Wyll’s content material is sparser than I’d have favored in consequence. He’s additionally break up into two tales, actually – the Mizora story and the Ravengard story, and that may have been a mistake in hindsight. I additionally want I might [have] given him a stronger endpoint – it all the time bugged me that he can find yourself simply as he began, because the Blade of Frontiers, with none significant distinction. All that mentioned, I like the Blade and I’m actually happy with him, his sincerity, his good nature, and his keen heroism. I’m actually sorry I didn’t offer you extra high quality time with him.
Within the years since Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian has patched in some new content material for Wyll and different companions, however he has all the time felt like he was a couple of steps behind the remainder of the crew. However based mostly on VanOrd’s rationalization, it sounds just like the character was largely a sufferer of circumstance, although that will not fulfill his diehards who’ve watched different characters get extra scenes, interactions, and love over the course of the sport.
