The excellent (and award-winning) game from Larian Studios had an interesting mechanic that we’ve seen before, but it wasn’t related to the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) universe.

When you play honor mode in Baldur’s Gate 3, you have permadeath. If you die, there is no way to resurrect. Other than that, all you need is a Revivify Scroll to return to the land of the living, following the rules of D&D 5e (though slightly modified, as it originally required a powerful spell that gets more costly and advanced the more time has passed since our character died.

Originally, however, Baldur’s Gate 3 had a more complex solution, which was discussed by studio co-founder and CEO Swen Vincke during a roundtable discussion. If we died, we would find ourselves in the Fugue Plane, while the rest of our team would remain in the Material Plane. The Fugue Plane is where souls go immediately after death. This is where the gods come and guide everyone to the right heaven. If no one embraces us, we become part of a living wall around the city of conflict/judgment until we dissolve. This city is home to the gods of death (including Myrkul, a major character in Baldur’s Gate 3).

Although Larian Studios built the system for this plane, it was not used in the game and may be used in another project by the Belgian studio. It would probably have been a problem for the pacing of the game, since death happens during combat, and it might have been too slow to return to the living. Baldur’s Gate 3 allows players to fight multiple battles in the same game if they wish, as the order of initiative is determined locally. However, they can “pause” by never running their own turn, while their allies who are not in the initiative order can run around the rest of the world unhindered. Combining this with the fugue level would have been impossible.

In 2006’s Prey, when you died, you had to spend some time on a spiritual plane to come back to life. This also slowed down the gameplay a bit…

Source: PCGamer