Patch 7 is Larianâs Final Betrayal of The Emperor: My Analysis of the New Cinematic Cutscene Between The Emperor and Ansur.
When I read in the patch 7 notes that Larian had updated the animation for the cutscene with the Emperor and Ansur, I honestly thought the scene was going to remain largely unchanged except Ansurâs bones would rise at the end of the cinematic. Instead, Larian completely threw out the old cinematic more than a year after the gameâs release, replacing it with one thatâs vastly inferior to its predecessor both in technical execution and its thematic implications.
In the original cinematic, Ansurâs spirit possesses the player character, his bones remain still while the virtual camera wends its way through the dragon's animated spirit and into the body of the playerâs avatar, providing the motion and energy the scene needs. The astral prism then stirs, the music swells, and the Emperor comes into the scene beside the player characterâs limp and overtaken body. Thereâs a powerful and beautiful visual contrast of Ansurâs bones on the dirt, the cold blue color of his spirit as it rises within those bones, his bronze scales green with the passage of time, against the warmth of the orange glow surrounding the Emperor as he emerges from the prism. His slow emergence, gently planting his feet beside the player character, is starkly different from the violence with which Ansur steals the player characterâs autonomy. We hear the anger and accusation in Ansurâs voice, and the vulnerability in the Emperorâs. We get to see the Emperorâs expression harden as he faces Ansurâs anger, only to soften and his eyes widen from the shock of Ansurâs accusations. Thereâs an irony to this scene that Ansur accuses the Emperor of bringing a thrall before him, when Ansur is the one whoâs callously stolen the player characterâs autonomy. When Ansur becomes consumed with his anger, when he cannot be reasoned with, he proclaims his bones will rise and bring about the final tempest. The lair violently rumbles as Ansur pulls in energy from the environment, his anger overflowing. Once the battle begins, we see the wyrmâs bones now risen and shaking. Thereâs at once the intimacy of two former lovers reunited, as well as a tragedy on a mythological scale that the visuals, the music, the voice acting, and the cinematography capture. This scene was moving and complete.
These images were screenshot from one of my own games.
However, more than a year after the gameâs release, Larian, for some inexplicable reason, threw this entire cinematic out. The new cinematic features an undead Ansur reanimating, pulling the player character up into the air, and possessing their body via a stream of spirit coming out of the dragonâs mouth that overwhelms the scene with a constant loud whooshing that makes any thematic music barely audible. The astral prism stirs around the character held up in the air, thereâs a brief orange glow, and the Emperor then appears on the ground in a thick mass of shadows far below where the prism is. The warmth, intimacy, vulnerability, and contrast we see expressed in the color palette of the original scene has been completely replaced with these black shadows that obscure the Emperor so much the scene looks as though it wasnât properly lit. Thereâs an additional effect of clipping black shadows strategically placed on the Emperorâs face so that only his eyes are barely visible, glowing menacingly as the camera looks down on him. For a character whose anatomy limits his facial expressions to his brows, these poorly rendered, clipped black shadows placed directly over the front of his face are no accident, and completely obscure the minutiae of his expressions. Combined with the downward angle and the glowing eyes, the vulnerability and humanity have been all but stripped away. Whatâs more bizarre is the voice acting is the same, creating this tonal dissonance between the softness and intimacy we hear in the Emperorâs voice, and this menacing, expressionless figure surrounded by shadow. Ansur then proclaims that his bones will rise, but his bones have already risen because this dialogue was clearly written for a different scene that no longer exists in this final patch. All these changes are not just bad, theyâre almost amateurish. I certainly would not expect to find something like this in a game that swept all those GOTY awards.
These images were screenshot from Tjoa Jun Choi's upload of the new cinematic. I looked for other uploads as well to compare brightness, and while Ansur is brighter in some videos, the Emperor is equally as poorly lit. You can click on the link in this caption to see Tjoa Jun Choi's upload that features both the old and new cinematic for this scene.
These visual changes have thematic implications as well. The Emperor, having once been Balduran, was forced to undergo ceremorphosis, but grew to accept his new form. However, Ansur could not accept him, and kept looking for a cure even after the Emperor had repeatedly and desperately pleaded with him to stop, to leave, and to find peace without him. When a cure could not be found, Ansur tried to murder his love in his sleep, self righteously calling it a âmerciful death.â To present us now with a scene so tonally and visually different, one that obscures the Emperorâs humanity and casts him in this menacing light, is problematic to put it mildly, especially in a game as queer-coded as this one.
For a company that keeps altering its game to cater to players, who were they catering to with these changes? Is this new scene for the players who didnât realize this encounter deconstructed the legend of these two figures? Is this for players who thought the Emperor should have let Ansur kill him, when itâs an expectation they would never hold to their own character? Is this for the players who hugged their Dream Guardian for a few seconds, and then spent the rest of the game angry over being âcatfishedâ because they created their Guardian in hopes of seducing them? Is this for the players who romanced the Emperor âfor the achievementâ and then pretended to be ashamed about it? Is this scene for players who feel personally lied to for not knowing all along the Emperor was Balduran? (In writing we call this a âtwist,â and believing this twist is contingent upon Ansur identifying him). Was this change for players who parrot how the Emperor is soulless without any further curiosity as to what soullessness means in the context of this fantasy world? Is this for players whose sympathy of those we deem as monsters only extends to those who are conventionally attractive? Is this for the players who just canât wait to kill the Emperor so Orpheus can turn into a mindflayer instead of them?
If this scene is for them, why is Larian catering to the lowest bar? Why is Larian catering to players whose media literacy doesnât extend beyond their personal dislike of this character? Why are they catering to players unfamiliar with this genre and the tropes, themes, or twists we can expect from it? Why are they catering to players who donât want to be challenged in a narrative that, ostensibly, pretends to challenge us?
This is not the first time Larian has altered a scene relating to the Emperor in a bafflingly lazy way. The first was the Emperorâs romance scene. - We all know the one Iâm talking about. Itâs the one where you get to sleep with a queer-coded alien who has non-traditional, non-human anatomy. Your companions then âwalk inâ on you and are completely disgusted for a cheap and mean-spirited laugh in an otherwise sincere and well written scene. - After many players complained that there were no companion reaction lines to âwalking inâ on your romance, Larian added a single line in which the Emperor promises to wipe their memories. It was a truly lazy addition that added all kinds of problematic implications and never fixed the issue at hand. Setting aside that your player character doesnât get to react to this memory wipe, there are multiple opportunities for companions to discover you romanced the Emperor: one from the Emperor himself, another from Orpheus, and a potential one from Raphael, but there are still no companion reactions in those scenes either! Larian seemingly just didnât care. This addition was on top of there being no evidence in the game that the Emperor can manipulate someoneâs memory so completely as to just wipe it clean. It was just bad, lazy writing.
As bad as that was, this newest change is far worse in my opinion, and it truly shows how little the developers think of this character. I know he may not be the most popular, but heâs hugely significant to the game. He sets the story in motion, heâs at the center of two of the largest twists in the narrative, he subverts our expectations in many ways, he has the deepest ties to the city at the heart of the gameâs conflict, and yet the developers have shown little care or attention to his handling in the gameâs updates. Thatâs on top of an overall lack of content related to romancing, or merely interacting, with the Emperor - which is the subject of a different analysis for another time.
The original cinematic for the scene between the Emperor and Ansur needed no changes, and certainly did not need to be thrown out entirely. It was a beautiful scene in which we see the myth of Balduran and Ansur laid bare and broken. We see the Emperor as someone who was the victim of violence at the hands of his partner; violence that nearly took his life. We see Ansur driven mad by grief and misplaced righteousness, unable to let go of his entitlement over the life of someone he loved. We see heroes of old fallible and unreliable, and we must put our faith in the alliances we have made along the way. This scene was supposed to challenge us.
At this point, I will not be updating my game to patch 7. Baldurâs Gate 3 was not complete on release, but rather than merely add content with new patches, Larian has rewritten elements of the game. I do not believe this new scene is somehow closer to an original vision. Not after so much time has passed, and not when the original scene was so well done and actually matched the writing, tone, animation, and voice acting. This was just an unnecessary and poorly executed rewrite that placed more value on a âcoolâ reanimation for Ansur than it did on the humanity of the original scene we had for more than a year. I genuinely believe that the Emperorâs creative team had a vision and cared about the work they did to bring the Emperor to life. I believe the writers, animators, his voice actor Scott Joseph, and even composer Borislav Slavov, put a lot of careful and thoughtful work into the Emperor. I believe Swen Vincke is likely the one who has undermined their careful work. Itâs a shame because all the potential is there, and what little content we were given for this character has been eroded with thoughtless additions and poor rewrites. The members of the Emperor's creative team who actually care about this character, as well as the fans who care and identify with the themes present in the Emperorâs story, really deserved better than this.
