It's no secret that Baldur's Gate 3 companions Lae'zel and Shadowheart have a bit of a, um, strained relationship straight off the bat, but they do admittedly share a lot of similarities – and Larian Studios writers used these while creating their scripts.
Speaking in a recent edition of Edge magazine, writer Kevin VanOrd and John Corcoran recall as much. "Sometimes I yearn for linear storytelling," VanOrd admits first – the Baldur's Gate 3 world is so big, after all, so it's not surprising to hear that it pulled writers off their path as much as it does players.
While attempting to solidify some limits early on in development, VanOrd sat down with Corcoran to discuss similarities between the characters they were writing.
Which characters were they? The ever-beloved (or hated – take your pick, shippers) Baldur's Gate 3 companions, Lae'zel and Shadowheart.
While initially introduced as opponents of sorts, or perhaps more accurately, party members with an especially unfriendly affinity toward one another, the two adventurers share similar beginnings.
They're both in a constant struggle against their upbringing and the values it taught them.
With Shadowheart, it's the Sharrans. With Lae'zel, it's her githyanki background. These sorts of ties are what helped the two writers create convincing dialogue – and a convincing romance, which I'd argue could not have been easy to do.
"We realized we were writing the same story from different directions, and so that allowed us to reframe their initial clash and inform their later conversations."
Yeah, those later convos offer a very different flavor.
I'm an Astarion truther myself, so I've never explored romance between the two, but I can see how VanOrd and Corcoran might've ironed things out between their two seemingly different – albeit far more similar beneath the surface – companions.
