Return to Windspear: The Inside Story of Baldur’s Gate II’s Cut Project — Exclusive Interview
Firkraag, the once tyrannical dragon who haunted the Windspear Hills is long gone. In his place, “A new terror has taken up residence.” Staged in Throne of Bhaal, Return to Windspear was an ambitious fan-made project designed to make ground-breaking additions to Baldur’s Gate 2.
A brief excerpt, taken from one of the projects homepages, reveals a captivating plot.
“Garren Windspear has sent a messenger to ask for your help with a matter most dire. The quest involves interaction with the highest members of the Radiant Heart to rescue several known members of the Order from an uncertain fate trapped within the old complex.”
Despite the presence of an impressively written quest component, elaborate plans and significant additions to the Baldur’s Gate series, the project was never fully released.
In order to uncover Return to Windspear’s origins and the inside story of why it was never released, I reached out to Quitch, one of the projects developers and designers.
Some of the revelations are remarkable.
When asked to remember the projects end goals, Quitch stated: “The plan was ambitious, which was to create a mod using completely new areas, a breadth and depth of dialogue never seen before, and enemies with hand-crafted AI designed to make full use of their abilities.”
“The original plan was that you were summoned by Garren to the Windspear Hills to defeat a threat beneath them. This all goes a little astray when he is kidnapped, and his place taken at the meeting by a dragon cultist named Jarata. How Jarata presented the situation to you depended on your alignment.”
“As the project went on additional elements creeped into the scope.”
“A further side-quest was added around a sub-dungeon where a long-forgotten war between a king and beholders continues to be waged by their memories. There’s also a further side-quest involving a demi-lich down here.”
“The other addition was a new companion, a baby dragon, gained at the end of the main questline. They would grow over time while in your party, and you’d shape how they saw the world around them.”
“Most of the work was actually completed in the first six months, with another six months where some more work was ground out. After that, the project kind of hobbled along in denial for a while before finally just ceasing to be spoken about.”
It is apparent the failed project included a number of amazing plans and written content.
For instance, the addition of 26 new areas, new creatures and even a new companion! What was Quitch most excited to see?
“Honestly? My stuff”, was an initial three-word answer.
“I came into the project off the back of completing Planescape Torment, which was taking the character stuff I loved from Baldur’s Gate II but making it the major focus of the game. It was a huge influence for me at the time.”
“We had a lot of dialogue. Too much. We really needed someone to edit me down. But we were giving the player a lot of freedom within those dialogue to achieve different outcomes. You could force fights, make friends, turn people, talk people down, betray people, etc. I was also big on having companion reactions, especially from romances or Imoen.”
“I was quite keen on the Imoen side-story we had going, where she appeared to be losing her mind and turned to her sibling for help. I was always disappointed that the main game hadn’t done more with Imoen, due of course to the fact that she was originally going to die at the mid-point and that decision was reversed quite late, and wanted to fix that.”
“You got to shape who she became, and what kind of sibling you were, as she confronted the memories of what Irenicus had done to her. The outcome of this also influenced how she responded to a number of dialogues within the questline.”
A conclusion to this question brought forwards the admission of, “The Imoen dialogue was probably my one scope-creep contribution to the project.”
Throughout our interview, occasional frustrations surfaced at how, ‘scope creep,’ had bleed into the project.
Now, we turned to the main plot. Reduced to a vanquished, vanished, and ultimately long since removed power, Firkraag’s halls were under new rulership. In a series of questions, Quitch revealed each and every detail…
Revelations.
Blackbɨrd: In the promotional art, a sinister purple dragon captures the eye. Can you reveal any details about the dragons origins? Can you disclose any information on it’s involvement?
Quitch: “That was Dasypus, the antagonist. They had setup their lair beneath the Windspear Hills with their dragon cultists.”
“A long time ago their mate had been slain by the Order and their eggs smashed. Dasypus fled along with one egg they found intact. He thought it dead as it would not hatch but couldn’t bring himself to let it go.”
“He had sworn revenge on the Order and was planning to become a dracolich to destroy the Order in totality. The player turns up while the ceremony is underway and if they take too long, they face dracolich Dasypus rather than dragon Dasypus.”
“There’s no requirement to fight though, with an 80 page draft dialogue document (I needed an editor) allowing you to tease our their backstory and talk them down, either to a path of peace, or through convincing them that you are no threat to their plans for revenge.”
“He has a ring on his finger which grants a single wish. I recall that Dasypus has used the ring previously to wish for his child to be born but has lost faith in the ring after the egg remains unhatched. The egg will hatch after Dasypus departs or dies, but I can’t recall if you need to use the ring to achieve that outcome.”
“Thus is birthed Shel, the new companion. One of the many ill-advised items of scope creep within the project.”
Blackbɨrd: Can we talk a little about Shel? The New Companion? How fully developed was she?
Quitch: “As a component within the quest Shel was mostly complete, but as an NPC there was still a lot to do. Only five banters had been written, there was no reactivity to things outside Return to Windspear, and the entire mechanism of growth still had to be written. We did have the sound set lines completed.”
“I also wanted to do player-initiated conversations, because Planescape Torment did it, and almost all of that needed writing too.”
“Late in the project when it was looking like we wouldn’t finish we talked about cutting Shel from the mod.”
Blackbɨrd: Going back to Dasypus, once his situation was resolved… Could you expand on a few of the different outcomes? I’ve read a little about knighthood, a ceremony (held) by the order of the radiant heart to thank the bhaalspawn, and even a murder spree of the order (based on choices and how the search for the captured knights went)?
Quitch: “With Dasypus you had numerous paths in the dialogue you had to explore. There was the path to power, path of time, the path of knowledge, the path of enlightenment, the path to self, and the path to understanding. These were my internal names for the themes each explored, and on each you had to raise your bond with Dasypus and uncover his backstory to enable access to the dialogue non-combat endings.”
“On the talkdown path you would then be sent down one of several paths, based on your first line. This could be intelligence, wisdom, charisma, or vengeance.”
“Depending on your stats, whether Dasypus was a dracolich or not, and what options you picked, you could then resolve the situation without combat ending in the pacified or vengeful Dasypus states.”
“On leaving the dungeon you’d encounter the Order and would be questioned on everything that had happened. You would go through phases of dialogue for each event covering Shel, Garren, some Paladins you’d met, Jarata, the caves (sub-dungeon), Carsomyr (I think this was used to kill Dasypus’s mate and so it comes up a few times), and Dasypus. If you make it through without causing combat, then we’d move on to the reward ceremony.”
“Outside of Shel this “Sir Ryan Trawl” dialogue was the only one which hadn’t been completed.”
Blackbɨrd: Was there an option to side with Dasypus and aid him in the order’s destruction?
Quitch: “Only morally. I do think we considered having Dasypus appear to murder the Order outside and it might have happened if the Sir Ryan Trawl dialogue had been completed. This certainly sounds like the kind of overreach our project would have engaged in.”
Continuation.
A sense of, what might have been, surrounds the project. In production before being tragically halted during the early 2000’s, Beamdog, the developers of Baldur’s Gate’s Enhanced Editions, acquired the entirety of the rights, content and materials for Return to Windspear In July of 2012.
What would have to happen for the content to ever appear inside the game? When asked, Quitch issued a response:
“You’d need to speak to Beamdog in regards to requirements for publishing. Personally, I don’t think you’ll ever see it. Why would a creative want to work with someone else’s material and not their own? There are too many stories to tell to be telling someone else’s.”
Further questions remain.
An attached screenshot from one of the projects pages, captures a floating skull named Karlash, in what appears to be a secluded tomb.
Quitch states how Karlash is a, “optional encounter and came about as part of (the lead modder) Cuv’s utterly mad idea to add an entirely new sub-dungeon within the existing dungeon.”
Qutich continues to explain: “If we ever lagged in development, he’d suddenly pop back with a bunch of new area concepts that needed filling.”
“Its YADL (yet another demi-lich) you can encounter, though its more interested in going back to sleep than fighting you.”
“Through dialogue you can take some personal risk to restoke its passion for life, and it tasks you with helping it escape. The passion for life scenes was the kind I really liked writing, and the most heavily Planescape influenced, where you view yourself through the eyes of a romance, your sibling, or simply the rage of Bhaal within you.”
“And if you don’t have anyone who cares enough about you, and you’re not strong enough to contain the rage, it doesn’t end well.”
Additional Questions and Answers:
In a section of our conversations, Quitch adds, “I was probably the biggest voice on the project and had a relatively free reign to determine how quests would play out.”
On the subjects of writing evil choices for characters and when thinking about how Baldur’s Gate 2 had originally presented opportunities for evil choices, Quitch adds the below comment:
“Indeed, if I were to write the mod now I would (have) given more weight to the idea that being good requires personal sacrifice, and evil would be someone who made sacrifices of others for their own gain.”
When asked to recall the origins of the project, and to recall a moment which influenced the original decisions to create Return to Windspear, Quitch’s comment may surprise you.
“I don’t recall if I ever knew why Cuv (lead modder) chose this particular scenario. Certainly, I didn’t have any particular attachment to the Windspear Hills. At this point I don’t even recall what the original quest was in the Windspear Hills!”
“In terms of why make the mod at all, we were all IEEAIS members who’d enjoyed working on Ascension and wanted to do more.”
Prominent sections of the mod involved the captured knights, various moral choices, side quests and Dasypus the dragon turned Dracolich. Speculation also existed concerning the new companion, Shel.
When asked if she possessed her own sound set as was rumoured, and how difficult the process of getting voice actors was, Quitch provided further information.
“We hadn’t recruited anyone for Shel yet. We had someone for Jarata, but she fell off the grid before all of Jarata’s lines were completed.”
Another modder, involved in the project (Xyx), may have voiced Dasypus. Quitch concludes: “None of the other named characters had been given voices yet.”
Yet. If fully developed, the possibilities of additional voice actors recruited for the project may have been explored. Likewise, are the possibilities for how popular, in terms of fame and success, Return to Windspear might have been.
Quitch contemplated how popular the project may have turned out.
“I suspect it would be like Ascension, something known within the hardcore community, but not given wide consideration. It was also a long time before Ascension worked with the Enhanced Edition, and that was thanks to kind individuals who put a lot of effort into making it compatible.”
“Would people have done that for Return to Windspear?”
In another timeline, the released mod might have been celebrated with great fanfare. For reference, there is over there is over 32,000 views on the mod’s official announcement, posted around two decades ago.
Quitch concludes, “Potentially the mod might have done better than Ascension because it was new content rather than modifying existing content. But I think the constraints of the day would have limited how well known it would be now.”
Conclusions:
In hindsight, what would Quitch have done differently?
Quitch’s overall message could be summarised through a two word statement, “A lot.”
“When it comes to mod content, I’m a fan of release early, release often. I’d have broken the mod into modules and focused on completing each in turn. Primary quest line first, then sub-dungeon, then Shel.”
“Not only does this garner you feedback on a regular basis, along with free testing, you get to feel you’re achieving something and avoid burnout. Burnout is what kills mods.”
“I’d have recruited more people. The team was too small for what we were trying to achieve. At the very least we needed a dedicated scripter, and we really needed another writer too.”
“Later on we did recruit, but we were shockingly bad at on-boarding people (because we were burned out), so this never amounted to much.”
“More times we needed to say no to things. Got a cool idea you’re not sure how you’re going to implement? It’s cut. We can come back to it later.”
“I’d radically simplify the dialogue. All those trees sound cool, but in hindsight it’s just bloat. An editor needed to come in and halve the length of things like Dasypus’s dialogue. More planning was needed about how the dialogue was going to flow for each conversation before a single word was written.”
“I’d abandon the Planescape Torment style. I loved what it allowed us to do in the text medium, but it didn’t fit with the rest of the game and it just made writing dialogue even more of an effort because the speaking bit was now only half the writing.”
It has been many years since the project has ceased, but the presence of regret continues to linger.
“My biggest regret,” Quitch notes, “is that we never finished it. It failed for (the) same reasons a lot of such projects fail: no one took on the role of saying no to new ideas or content, and no one was really pruning the existing materials for quality.”
To conclude, Quitch adds: “The project constantly grew until eventually it outgrew the enthusiasm of the remaining team. It died as all such projects do, quietly, and in denial.”
