Baldur's Gate 3 dev explains in painstaking detail how and why players get to break the game: "The easy thing would be to block players ... but we don't like that at Larian"

In a newly posted presentation for Sofia Game Jam, Larian gameplay scripter Mihail Kostov outlined the work and thinking that goes into an RPG as freeform as Baldur's Gate 3, focusing on the "edge cases" that Larian had to account for even if an incredibly small percentage of players might run into them. We've heard similar stories from Larian before, but Hostov offered an interesting nitty-gritty approach. 

This comes on the heels of newly discovered content from Proxy Gate Tactician, who unearthed new fail-safes and a rare unsolved soft lock tied to losing the all-important Netherstones in Baldur's Gate 3. One of these safeguards, a group of kobolds that can recover your Netherstones from a destroyed factory in case you somehow left them behind pre-explosion, comes up in Kostov's talk. The rest of the presentation is an equally fascinating look under the hood of a famously detailed RPG. Spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3, up to and including Act 3, ahead. 

Hostov and Larian define edge cases as "any way that a player action may push a system to the extreme." Larian's goal in these cases is to "ensure that the game is always completable from start to finish" no matter what hijinks players get up to, and to maintain consistency within the narrative – no teleporting or inexplicably revived characters and what not. This challenge goes on the scale opposite Larian's desire to "fuel and reward player creativity," Hostov explains, and to make sure that "players' choices have consequences." This lines up with previous comments from Larian boss Swen Vincke, who stressed the importance of creating content that very few players will find. 

Here comes the 'but' looming over this situation: there are a lot of ways to break Baldur's Gate 3. Hostov shared a laundry list of challenges that will no-doubt strike fear into the hearts of game devs: 

Even then, Hostov says "there are many, many more, that's just a few." But these factors alone frame an array of potential exploits and