Baldur's Gate 3 - Adam Smith Interview

Sector interviewed Adam Smith about crafting narratives, balancing rich lore with innovative storytelling:

Unveiling Baldur's Gate 3: The Art of Crafting an Acclaimed RPG

Having spent three and a half decades playing games and the best part of a decade writing about them, Adam Smith embodies a lifelong passion for gaming. His journey led him to Larian Studios during the nascent stages of Baldur’s Gate 3's production.

Having spent three and a half decades playing games and the best part of a decade writing about them, Adam Smith embodies a lifelong passion for gaming. His journey led him to Larian Studios during the nascent stages of Baldur’s Gate 3's production, where he now serves as Writing Director. In this exclusive interview, Adam shares profound insights into crafting narratives, balancing rich lore with innovative storytelling, and his vision for the future of interactive narratives in video games.

How does it feel to work on probably the most acclaimed game ever made?

It's been such a long development process, and we've spent so much time working on it, caring about it, trying to make it as good as it could be, that once it came out, my overwhelming feeling was relief. I thought to myself, 'I think we did it, I think it's good.' And I felt very confident in it, but it was still scary. The most important thing for me is that we found the audience, we found a really big audience.

And I've said this many, many times, but it's very true, that my biggest, most powerful emotion on release day was, 'I think we get to do this all over again,' and that was so exciting. But I also see everything that was not great in the game, because I spent so long looking at all the problems. The entire last six months of development were spent saying, 'This is broken, this is broken, this isn't as cool as it could be,' and trying to fix them. So, to me, it's something I'm exceptionally proud of, but the response is just surreal, it's really surreal. I think we made a good game, and I'm really proud of it. But I also see every single problem with it.

In your opinion, what makes Baldur's Gate 3 special?

I think it's a million things. For me, the standout aspect is that we made a game where we didn't put a lot of filler into it. We wanted to ensure that players cared about what they were doing in the game. But what's magical about Larian, I believe, is that we have a lot of people who are very talented at what they do. During Baldur's Gate 3, everyone was performing at their peak or close to it. I think we can always strive to do better, but everyone was doing great. So it's the combination of writing, music, cinematics, performances, the scripters who make it all work, and the engineers who ensure we can achieve all the cool things we do. Everyone brought their best.

So it's that collaboration. I think from a writing perspective, we got the characters right. We created characters that people care about, that they want to kill in some cases, want to fuck in others, and want to spend time with. I think we got that right. I'm very proud of that. But I think it's a very rich game. There's a lot to do. I'm the writing director, but my favorite part of an RPG is combat. Combat is the thing that I love. And I love some of the boss fights, some of my favorites ever in an RPG, and the vistas we get to see. I think it's a combination of all of that.

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