Baldur’s Gate 3’s lead mocap choreographer reveals Lae’zel’s combat stance is based on a real technique that came to an ancient samurai master in a dream
Baldur’s Gate 3‘s flavourful character animations are among the many things the game does brilliantly. They imbue each character with their own distinctive personality: From the poise and elegance of Shadowheart’s resting stance, to the cute soft-step-shuffle of Karlach while she’s keeping heself juiced up for battle, and onto to the brutal lunges, sweeps and kicks of Lae’zel and others, there’s a vivid, real feel to how these characters move.
Now, thanks to an enlightening new video diary from Larian, we’ve just got some really cool, never-before-seen insight into how the animations for Baldur’s Gate 3 were created, with a specific emphasis on everyone’s favourite Githyanki warrior queen. The video stars Larian’s mocap and choreography master, Mustapha El Bachiri, and it can be watched in full above.
My biggest takeaway from this video is the level of research Mustapha put into the creation of many of Lae’zel’s moves, with him confirming that the Githyanki swordplay was inspired by an “eastern martial arts samurai background.” Mustapha read so much into these old combat techniques that he could put “a little elusive touch” to Lae’zel’s combat by introducing a special move that an ancient master once dreamt up.
Mustapha notes that this ancient master had a dream where he was fighting a particularly tough opponent that he couldn’t beat, but in his dream he then envisioned ‘a final missing move’ that would help him win. The move involved eluding his opponent by disguising the positioning of his blade, resting it backwards on his inside arm and behind his side-on body, thereby helping to shroud his intent and the timing of his attack until the last second. And that very same move can be seen in Baldur’s Gate 3, with Lae’zel both resting large blades against her elbow in the same way when idle, as well as disguising the blade’s positioning behind her body when preparing to strike.
It’s just another example of the crazy level of passion, commitment and detail that went into PC Gamer’s Game of the Year in 2023, and why in our Baldur’s Gate 3 review we bestowed upon it the highest score we’d give a game for over 16 years, calling it “an unrivalled RPG that will swallow your life whole.”
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