A ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Writer Explains Wyll’s Disappointing Arc

Those who’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 love the characters, and if there’s one common observation made about them, it’s that Wyll Ravengard feels underdeveloped. Compared to others like Astarion and Karlach, his personal story has come across as lacking after his debut in the Early Access build, and that sentiment further grew when Larian made several post-launch updates to the game’s ending and epilogue, where he seemed to get the short end of the stick.

On Friday, several Larian developers conducted a Reddit AMA, where senior writer Kevin VanOrd acknowledged Wyll having “sparser” content than he’d have preferred, saying he was “split into two stories” between his infernal patron Mizora and the Ravengards. The team wasn’t really feeling his quest and recruiting in the initial Early Access version and opted to start over. Unfortunately, a lot of where Wyll ends up in the final version of Baldur’s Gate 3 came to “less than ideal” circumstances owing to coming late in development.

When Larian restarted him, the personal stories for most of the core cast were “fairly solid,” and much of where he ends up in the final version of Baldur’s Gate 3 came late in development. One example VanOrd cited was a “key situation” at Baldur’s Gate meant to feature Wyll prominently in the Red War College, which then got cut. That eventually led to him being the son of Duke Ravengard, which the writer then developed shortly before getting sick, and then again after the epilogue came out.

As for the Wyrmway, a sub-quest for Wyll gained after saving Ulder Ravengard (or if Wyll breaks his pact with Mizora), VanOrd said the team had resources for a standalone dungeon and opted to tie it to him. The writer said he “couldn’t get more than a dungeon boss” out of the location and that he had to start writing once the encounters were in place.

VanOrd went on to call it a “mistake in hindsight” to divide Wyll’s arc like that, but he’s still immensely proud of what was done with the character—in particular his “sincerity, good nature, and eager heroism.” And he wishes the Blade of the Frontiers could’ve had a more satisfying ending, something the character’s fans have already done on their own time.

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