It’s a common practice in the games industry to not include cut content in the final product. Whether it is time constraints or a last-minute change in direction, there’s always going to be stuff left on the cutting room floor. Much to the dismay of the player base. The task then falls on the shoulders of dataminers to piece together the game “that could have been” from the tattered pieces.
In this article, we’ll go through the deleted scenes that, for one reason or another, were not included in the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3. Many of these scenes that were found by data miners are passionately talked about by fans, especially players who played the Early Access version of the game. Please note that we won’t be including references to just voice lines as this kind of content is the easiest to scrap during development.
Most of the credit in this article goes to Reddit user u/Vasgorath over at the Baldur’s Gate subreddit as they have compiled and verified much of the information presented in this article.
The Upper City
Cut two weeks before launch despite the “Affluent Upper City” being described as fully explorable though absent from the game. The most painful part about it is that Sven himself talked about it a fair bit and was heavily advertised a couple of months before the release.
Though not part of the list, per se. A lot of the cut content revolves around missions that would have taken place in the Upper City. From what we know, some parts of the Upper City were moved to the lower parts. This explains why some entrances don’t make sense from a city planning perspective.
Players have speculated that the reason why it was cut out was due to performance issues on the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. This is supported by the fact that currently, the city suffers from frame rate issues as it is.
Karlach’s Ending
Datamined content shows that not only did Karlach have a full ending where her infernal engine was fixed and the that she survived, but that most of it was fully voiced and complete. This, however, required the Upper City as part of the story. Something that was cut from the game last minute.
Players have pointed out that the game just forgot about her for 2/3 of the story. Looking at how much of her story (especially from Act 3) was cut, it sort of makes sense now.
Minthara’s Story
"Minthara was meant to have a much deeper story, including a pregnancy. These were likely cut due to Minthara being a late-stage addition to our roster but dialogue lines remain in the game's files that show that not only did Minthra have a lot more content for herself but your other companions had a lot more to say about it."
The idea of a character going on to have a child is not new to the Buldar’s Gate franchise. There have been instances of it happening. We guess that it might have been a last-minute decision or the steps toward the event weren’t fleshed out enough.
Cazador’s Story
"Originally, Cazador was meant to play a huge role in the Upper City of Baldur's Gate, including being a huge political power. Datamined content also shows that originally he was meant to be a potential ally in the final push against the Absolute."
It seems apparent that much of Act 3 was streamlined, and not necessarily butchered for the sake of shipping out a product. Players have also noticed that the location he inhabits in the lower city felt extremely off. Like he was supposed to be placed somewhere else.
Scrapped Epilogues
"Full epilogue cutscenes have been datamined that varied greatly depending on your choices. These were the "17k ending variations" that Larian told us about, yet they are completely absent in the final game leading only to a fade to black scene at the end of the game."
Now this is actually something that most players would have liked to have seen in the game. And they have made their displease known in forums. It’s not as bad as Mass Effect 3’s blanket-nonsense ending, but a game player could spend more than 100 hours playing and deserve more than just a black screen.
The Wither’s Epilogue
"Wither's was meant to narrate an epilogue for the players, to what extent is unsure. But instead, Wither's is left with a single event in the entire game when in the post-credit he can be seen revealing himself as Jergal and mocking a mural of the Dead Three."
Youtuber Noble went through the game’s audio files and spotted 250 voice lines that are in relation to various Epilogue entries. This is what they have found.
Bhaal and Orin versus the Creche
"An entire Act 2 battle was cut in which Bhaal's forces, led by Orin, attacked the Githyanki creche which led to a fight where you either side with one or the other or had a massive 3-way fight on your hands."
Choosing a side in a major conflict often results in the entire world changing at the outcome of the battle. Imagine choosing the fate of New Vegas at Hoover Dam mid-way through the story even before arriving at the city. That would have been one huge mess to have the story told with one side being the clear victor. (Skyrim doesn’t count. It didn’t matter which side “won” Skyrim, no one cared who ruled Skyrim.)
Act 3 Companion Dialogue
"If you've noticed that companions have much less to say at the end of their journey it's because thousands of lines of dialogue were cut from companions in the final act and all for various reasons. This also seems to be the source of most of the companion bugs that only appear in the final act as they're still trying to trigger events that simply no longer exist."
This no doubt contributed to Act 3 feeling so underdeveloped. It’s hard to say if it was time constraints that made their implementation difficult or if the system would buckle to the weight of all the decisions made in the first two acts. The post points to the latter playing a huge part in the confusion.
Tadpoles and Consequences
"There were originally meant to be severe consequences for using the Illithid powers too heavily and investing too much into the Tadpole powers. This seems obvious in-game and yet ultimately in the release version goes nowhere as the ending is reduced to about 4 choices made in the last leg of the game. You can use all tadpoles or none and receive the same ending."
Currently, the game doesn’t differentiate how involved your character is in Tadpole powers. The outcome was going to be the same no matter what. You can down loads of tadpoles by the end with little recourse or consequence for your actions. Entire companion dialogue trees of them reacting to your decision to indulge yourself were removed from the game.
If you ask us, we’d like a bit more to the tadpoles. Instead of giving us a flat-out advantage for using them, why not make it so that we can choose to reject them? That would add more agency to their usage. Or at least give us a consequence for relying on them too much.
Mol and Raphael
"Isn't it odd how Mol will just escape from Raphael on her own and say it was "easy"? Well, it turns out that's because they were cut whatever the final leg of that quest was meant to be. Instead, they allow Mol to escape on her own which more or less skips to the end and around the cut content."
This change has got players scratching their heads on this one. He did a complete 180 from when you first encountered him to near the end where his role was greatly diminished. Mol was supposed to have a larger role in this too but without Raphael’s part, it was decided an unexplained escape was warranted.
Sharr Worship
"In EA [Early Access], the player was able to select Shar as a deity with it's own unique dialogue trees, especially when interacting with Shadowheart as a fellow Shar worshipper. Despite the fact that voice lines were datamined indicating this had functions well into Act 2, it was cut when the game launched."
Going by the community, Sharr isn’t exactly popular with many players. The most exposure they got from the cult is from Shadowheart. Not exactly a good reference point but it seems they would more to it if this cut piece of content is anything to go by. Scenes of the player being part of the Sharr cult is a huge shift and would require a lot more resources to fully realize. A possible explanation is that the content would have been too niche and that too few players would experience it.
This is but a taste of the amount of cut content that didn’t make it into the game. We will see more of this in the coming days as data miners make sense of more of the bits and pieces spread across the cutting room floor. We will update this article as soon as we have the details.
In the meantime, check out the rest of our content on Baldur’s Gate 3.