Baldur's Gate 3 characters were once "very old" and "ugly"

Baldur's Gate 3 once looked quite different from how it looks today.

According to Baldur's Gate 3 lead character artist Alena Dubrovina, the game's development - at least in terms of its art - started out "pretty bumpy, actually".

"We couldn't figure out the visual look that we wanted because of the very limited skill sets that we had," Dubrovina told GQ. "Within the first year, we probably changed direction three times."

The game moved from "stylised and more of an indie game" to ultimately have the "more realistic next-gen look" we know today.

This was certainly a good move, as Dubrovina stated the characters before were less pleasing to the eye. "The first character - her name was Alana, actually. She's not in the game, but when I look back at her... they were very old, very ugly characters," she told the publication.

Meanwhile, fellow members of the development team hope Baldur's Gate 3 will pave the way for more games of this ilk in the future.

"I hope it kicks the doors open," writing director Adam Smith said. "If you look at the indie space, RPGs never went away. People can go to a publisher and say, 'Well, look what it fucking did for them'."

Nick Pechenin, Baldur's Gate 3's lead systems designer, added: "I want to see people go off in all kinds of weird tangents, trying to look for how we improve this."

We are expecting to hear more Baldur's Gate 3 news, specifically its Xbox release date, this evening as part of The Game Awards. The title has been nominated for multiple awards, including Game of the Year, Best Game Direction and Best Narrative.

For more on Baldur's Gate 3, Ruth Cassidy has shared their thoughts on the new epilogues, which were introduced as part of a recent patch (be warned of spoilers if you follow this link).