Baldur’s Gate 3 Dark Urge writer apologizes for ‘fumbling’ Gortash romance

The writer behind Baldur’s Gate 3’s Dark Urge apologized to fans who ship the character with the villainous Gortash for the lack of a canon romance.

Perhaps no character in Baldur’s Gate 3 has been as controversial as Enver Gortash. The leader of the Cult of the Absolute and Chosen of Bane, God of Tyranny, has plenty of fans who want to see him get a better ending.

At the same time, other players don’t understand the hype surrounding Gortash, with many mercilessly mocking the fact that he’s described in-game as a “handsome young man with an easy smile.”

Beyond that, others have called for the game to make the Jason Isaacs-voiced villain a romance option, specifically for the Dark Urge Origin character with whom he has a long backstory.

Now, Baudelaire Welch, Baldur’s Gate 3’s romance and companion design lead who also wrote the Dark Urge’s story, has admitted they would have done things differently if they’d known how players would react to the characters.

Larian Studios

In an interview with Eurogamer, Welch admitted they “believe in the Dark Urge x Gortash ship wholeheartedly,” though they “never saw it coming” during development.

That largely seems to be due to the writers imagining Gortash in a very different way from what’s in the final product.

“I think we always imagined that Gortash was going to be an 80 year-old man over the course of development,” Welch said.

However, things changed after the team saw Gortash’s character model and heard Jason Isaac’s performance. That led Welch to say, “I so, so, so wish that I had seen that coming and added some optional hints of reactivity into that whole thing.”

Fans of the non-canon Dark Urge/Gortash romance were quick to share quotes from the interview, which prompted Welch to respond, “Sorry I fumbled the aging scene band frontman x bad dragon you guys, at least you know I ship it.”

Unfortunately for those fans, Larian has made it very clear that no Gortash romance is in the works. In developer updates ahead of Patch 7, the team went so far as to say, “Listen, he’s a complicated guy who’s busy contemplating the minutia of death cult office politics. Babygurl doesn’t have time to kiss.”