A new mod for Baldur’s Gate 3 that fixes a long-overlooked issue is kicking up a fuss online, because a few people aren’t too happy with Larian Studios for “how little they care about” one of the game’s companion characters.
Before we get into the mod itself, there’s a bit of context we need to cover before I can properly explain the issue it’s fixing.
In October 2020, a solid chunk of Baldur’s Gate 3’s first act was released in early access, with the full game eventually releasing on August 3, 2023.
Over the course of its nearly three-year-long early access period, Baldur’s Gate 3 changed a lot. Weapons and armour were added or removed, quests were completely overhauled, and thousands of pieces of dialogue ended up being altered or re-recorded completely.
However, there’s one thing that changed more than anything else in the game: Wyll.
In early access, Wyll was essentially a completely different character. His design was different, his backstory was different, and, most famously, his voice actor was different.
Wyll was originally voiced by Lanre Malaolu during early access, but was ultimately replaced by Theo Solomon when Larian Studios decided to overhaul the character. According to everyone involved in Baldur’s Gate 3’s production, this was because Malaolu was unable to return and record the new dialogue that Larian Studios had written.
Now, to the mod: Wyll – Theo Solomon Banter is a mod over on Nexus Mods by user nyilas7, which “replaces Wyll’s old voice lines with recordings from his new voice actor”.
As it turns out, a lot of the voice lines Lanre Malaolu recorded for Wyll are still in the official release of Baldur’s Gate 3. According to nyilas7, they managed to replace roughly “840 lines”, which includes “portrait clicks, combat, actions, stealth, and more”.
The odd thing is that the dialogue Theo Solomon recorded to replace these lines is in the game’s files, so it’s not just like Larian Studios forgot to record them. It just seems that, due to what is either an oversight or a bug, the new lines haven’t been implemented properly.
A few commenters over on Nexus Mods are, to say the least, slightly irate about this mistake.
“This is unbelievable. I always thought he sounded a little different in ambient lines but would never assume Larian would stoop this low. I already like many here were very disappointed with how Wyll has been handled, this is so bad. I don’t think I even need to say what Larian presumed of their players – two PoC are interchangeable? Shame”, commented user Loachies.
“Thank you so much for this fix. I can’t understand, how bad Wyll got treated by the devs. Especially since a) Theo is extremly talented and b) Wyll is the only PoC representation”, replied user Fylimar.
“No matter how much the topic of Wyll was brought up in the forums, it was ignored for the characters, that already had enough (too much in my opinion, because some companions just lock you out of hearing other companions remarks, so I often bench them to hear the others too).”
So, on one hand, I do kind of get where these commenters are coming from. Even following his rewrites, Wyll is still one of the least popular companion characters in the game. As a result, I’ve noticed that those who do like Wyll are often quite protective of him (especially considering that he is the only black companion in the game).
However, I do think it’s a huge stretch to even slightly imply that Larian Studio’s mistake here is born out of racism.
I don’t think they just assumed players wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between two black voice actors, especially considering that they made a point re-recording the dialogue that’s featured in this mod.
I think that Baldur’s Gate 3 is just a massive game with a lot of bugs, and this simply happens to be one of them.
Do not get me wrong; Baldur’s Gate 3 is a phenomenal game. Personally, it’s one of the best of all time. But even today, over two years after its official release, it’s still buggy as hell.
Larian Studios is still releasing hotfixes for the game on a monthly basis at this point, so I’m sure this is something they will get around to eventually. However, I’d wager that they’re more focused on gameplay-related bugs and glitches for the time being (hence why this audio-related issue hasn’t been addressed yet).
They still haven’t fixed Karlach’s bugged romance in act one yet, for crying out loud. I just want to snog my fiery big muscular wife, Larian– is that too much to ask?
