Baldur's Gate 3 would have originally let you recruit a major villain
And visit a swathe of other D&D locations.
Baldur's Gate 3 boss Swen Vincke has revealed a number of ideas cut from the game during its development - including the ability to recruit a major antagonist as a companion character.
Speaking to IGN, Vincke also mentioned plans to feature a wider range of locations in the game - including several that will be familiar to Dungeons and Dragons players.
If you're still playing (I'm only just on Act 3!), a final warning that Baldur's Gate 3 plot details follow.
Baldur's Gate 3 would have originally let you befriend its mid-game boss Ketheric Thorm, portrayed by Hollywood legend JK Simmons.
Thorm's role in the game is teased throughout its first two acts and builds brilliantly to your final confrontation with him, which serves as the big finale of Act Two.
There are various ways to approach your showdown with Thorm and you can, with some difficulty, still talk him down rather than kill him yourself. And it's at this point that developer Larian once planned for you to be able to bring Thorm along with you.
"If you play the game and there's a moment where you can convince him and you can see that a moment where he breaks, that moment led to recruitment," Vincke said. "We cut that out when we were rescoped. It was part of the fixing of Act two when we were stuck on it. That was what happened in the rescoping."
It's not fully clear from Vincke's answer whether Thorm would have been recruitable as a camp follower, such as Volo, or a fully-controllable party member. Still, Thorm's presence would have acted as a source of further plot details on Act Three's major villains, Gortash and Orin.
"He was supposed to be in your camp while you were dealing with Gortash and with Orin," Vincke continued. "So he became a source of information on them, and he could trust, you could get him to his arc. You could then be convinced by him to go to his side. So it was a great story, but yeah."
Cut locations originally planned for Baldur's Gate 3 included visits to the Githyanki palace of queen Vlaakith and the Gith Astral plane, more of Hell (beyond the bits you get already) and a stop at Candlekeep (which would have been nice for players of the original Baldur's Gate, or indeed D&D fans who have played Descent into Avernus).
These areas were removed as Larian ultimately decided they were too small to offer a real sense of exploration, and chose to feature fewer but bigger maps in the final game.
Larian has now confirmed it will not make Baldur's Gate 4 or any major expansion to Baldur's Gate 3 - though some smaller updates are still planned.