Baldur’s Gate 3 devs reveal Karlach’s key feature was late addition

The developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 have shared that a crucial element of Karlach – her infernal engine heart – was a late addition to the character.

During the BAFTA’s An Evening with Baldur’s Gate 3 masterclass held on June 14, 2024, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke, Writing Director Adam Smith, and Lead Writer Chrystal Ding discussed the award-winning game’s development and revealed this interesting Karlach tidbit (shared by PC Gamer).

Smith discussed the changes everyone’s favorite fiery tiefling underwent, saying “We had a lot of different concepts [for Karlach], and one of the last things that fell into place was the heart. We didn’t have the heart for a long time – this person was [just] a fugitive from hell.”

He also explained further the thinking behind giving Karlach an engine for a heart, saying the team was “looking for the extra coolness” and trying to answer the question “What is this character’s thing about them that we can interact with, that we can engage with?”

Larian Studios

Adding such a major aspect of Karlach’s character later in development – and the mechanics and visual elements that come with it – was clearly a massive undertaking for the developers. Smith even joked about it, recalling “When you say to a lighting team and a cinematic team, ‘by the way, she’s now got a glowing metal heart in her chest’, they say ‘oh okay, really?’ That was a good Wednesday.”

Vincke added that the notes went both ways, with the cinematic teams inspiring some changes themselves, saying “really it’s like many things about Baldur’s Gate 3, it was teamwork that defined what the characters did.”

The fact that such an important element of Karlach’s character didn’t come about until later in development is surprising. While her infernal engine heart was never mentioned in early access, it was not clear until now whether that was a matter of Larian moving story reveals around to save surprises for launch or a story beat that didn’t exist from the start.

It’s also a surprise given how much of Karlach’s story revolves around her malfunctioning engine heart. Throughout the game, Karlach expresses joy at finally being free from Avernus, but it’s tinged with fear that the engine will either kill her or force her back to the Hells for a solution.

On top of that, there are the Infernal Iron and Soul Coins players can use to power her up, the latter of which are consumables that activate Karlach’s special Infernal Fury ability.

Then again, Larian did manage to write, record, and create cinematics for a brand-new Karlach ending introduced in Patch 2, not even a full month after launch, so huge changes and story additions like this are impressive but not shocking.