The lead writer for Baldur's gate 3's Dark Urge, who was initially very squeamish, shows that you can do anything if you put your mind to it

The Dark Urge in Baldur's gate 3 is a major highlight. It puts the player in the role as a barely composed murderer, with the option to either give into or ignore the urge to kill.

The Dark Urge is a game that excels at being both horrifying and visceral. Imagine my surprise, when I read Eurogamer's interview of the Dark Urge storyline writer, that the Dark Urge writer was not a fan at all of gore.

Baudelaire was chosen for the role because Swen Vincke chose her "because their mother worked on the script of Silence of the Lambs the movie", explain the actors. "I think Swen had that in his head a little like, 'You will be good at this.'" The interview reveals that Welch is "squeamish", and they "hate" gore!

Adam Smith, the writer of the film, insists that this was the intention: "When you have someone who is into horror and gore, they want to make things cool. [The Dark Urge] comes from someone who thinks, 'This is f*cking horrific!' This gave it a uniqueness that I could not have brought; something that someone who has written 30 years of horror could not have brought. It was the squeamishness of it that made the delight in this kind of perverted, weird, and idiosyncratic."

I find it fascinating that someone who has an aversion towards goriness can be so good at implying this--though to be fair, Larian's design and art team backs up Welch's efforts. Many of Urge's sinful moments feature a lot of splatter, which was created by people who I hope don't vomit at the sight of entrails.

It's possible that the contrast between euphemistic descriptions and bloody mayhem is what drives it home. Welch says: "I didn’t want to write these lascivious description of things that were disgusting." Highlighting a scene in which the Dark Urge tears off a bird's wing, Welch notes, "it doesn’t describe doing it. It just says--while Dark Urge is tearing the wings off of this bird-—'You wonder what flying like birds would be like.' It's more disturbing, because it's a reaction psychological to it."

Welch's approach is not uncommon in horror. Welch's Clockwork Orange, the film he cites directly as an inspiration for the butler's character, has its nightmares dressed in cheery language. "That's what the Butler character is based on, that this is meant to be some naughty play going on."

It's not that Welch is completely unscathed. "I was squeamish in the beginning," they add. "It desensitised [me] to everything." It's unclear if that will show up in the new evil endings for BG3 when Patch 7 is released this year, but I am sure it will be a lot of fun.