Larian Introduces The Dark Urge – a Customizable Origin Character in Baldur’s Gate 3

Everything you do in your playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 affects the course of your journey. And it starts at the character creation screen. Each class, race, background, and Origin character has rippling effects on the world around you, triggering subtle permutations that change the Forgotten Realms in big, small, good, bad, exciting, and sometimes very bad ways. What is an Origin character? They’re essentially playable heroes, each with their own stories, desires, and attitudes toward the world around you. If you don’t play as them, they each become companions, who you may (or may not) recruit throughout your journey. You may have already met Shadowheart, Wyll, Gale, Astarion, Lae’zel, and Karlach – heroes with their own tales to tell, driven by your choices as the player. Of course, you can also customize your character and create an entirely new avatar, weaving their story through your actions with the same amount of depth & reactivity.

Today, however, we’re looking at an entirely new way to play Baldur’s Gate 3. The Dark Urge. A completely new customizable Origin, The Dark Urge can be created as any of the 11 races you’d like, but with their own Origin-like Dark Urge story as the backbone of your adventure. Bringing forth a trove of malevolent reactivity to Baldur’s Gate, let’s talk about The Dark Urge.

Become The Dark Urge
The Dark Urge embodies the darkest recesses of the moral spectrum. With alabaster skin and a hulking dragonborn frame, The Dark Urge’s preset design is an imposing one, glaring back with the piercing gaze of a predator. However, this is also a fully customizable character. Its class, appearance, species, and gender are completely up to you. After all, evil can reside within anyone, irrespective of how they appear.

If you’ve been following our community-driven murder mystery Blood in Baldur’s Gate, you’ll be familiar with the Dark Urge’s simple but effective modus operandi: to murder brutally and indiscriminately. The Dark Urge is driven to commit some of the most lurid acts of violence that you’ll encounter in the game, and playing as this character, you’ll either indulge your most depraved impulses or resist them. We hope this character will whet the appetite of horror fans and those who seek a more sinister character to inhabit during their playthrough.

Stepping into the role of the Dark Urge, you begin Baldur’s Gate 3 with your memory lost after an unfortunate encounter between a parasitic tadpole and your brain. Now all that’s left is an insatiable urge. An urge that makes itself known in your subconscious, through your deepest thoughts, and in your dialogue options. Dark Urge gives players the opportunity to explore their dark side and let their subconscious urges bubble to the surface in the form of sinister responses and permutations.

The Dark Urge customizable Origin holds many secrets, but it’s for you to discover what they are and where this brutal new darkness hails from. Just as an innocent squirrel, propelled with full force off a cliff, meets a tragic end, so too do the fragile hopes of those unfortunate enough to encounter you on the road. The Dark Urge is guided by Sceleritas Fel, your vile and loyal servant who lives only to see you return to your rightful bloodstained path. His words of encouragement are like poison in your mind, fueling your impulses. But it’s a poison that tastes like honey if you’re so inclined.

Despite your impulses as The Dark Urge, you are still a member of the party facing an arduous journey to Baldur’s Gate. Your party – in spite of your urges – will do its best to be there for you, and for those you grow closest to, you can still form relationships & romances. How they manifest compared to the others, however, is a tale only you can tell when Baldur’s Gate 3 releases on August 3 for PC/Windows & macOS platforms, and September 6 for PlayStation 5.