Design, Dialog, Featured, Game, Game Design, Mechanics, Programming, Systems, Worldbuilding, Writing

It’s sometimes hard to believe I worked on it myself – Game Of The Year 2025, long-awaited sequel of a legendary franchise, official Dungeons & Dragons adaptation – not bad for a first job. I started applying for a Gameplay Scripter job at Larian Studios when I was finishing up work on Heim (my main portfolio piece that got me the job, to be frank). Timing could not have been better in that regard – I started in February 2022 as a Junior and was promoted to Intermediate after release in 2023.

About the game

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an epic fantasy CRPG based on D&D mechanics, set on the Sword Coast in D&D’s very own Faerûn. In the game, a party of rag-tag adventurers must work together to free themselves from a mind flayer parasite, and overcome a grand evil plot to do so.

Systemics and player choice are core to the game mechanics – something we are well versed in as gameplay scripters.

Technology involved

  • Divinity Engine FW4.0
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Perforce source control

What did I do?

I worked as a gameplay scripter, which is one of the more varied roles in the company, but it boils down to designing and implementing quests in the game based on narrative briefs we receive from the narrative team. This is in tight cooperation with writing, combat and cinematic teams, overseen by an RPG designer who functions a region lead over the game region. We are also responsible for thinking of dozens of edge-cases so we can support any action a player takes as best as possible, rewarding their creativity.

I’ve personally mostly worked on the Mind Flayer Colony region and had some quests in the Wyrm’s Crossing and Lower City region as well. Apart from that I also scripted the game’s achievements and worked on the DLC item rewards.

The day to day tasks are:

  • Gameplay design & quest scripting (in-house programming language “Osiris”)
  • NPC Behaviour designing & scripting (in-house programming language “Anubis” – Lua based)
  • Designing dialog flows and wrote stubbed dialog
  • Communication nexus
  • Cooperation with and support for writers, combat designers, cinematic artists
  • Make asset requests
  • Bug fixing
  • Writing documentation & design documents
  • Supporting various colleagues in our help channel (my own personal work hobby)