You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Path to Menzoberranzan is, by far, the biggest custom campaign mod in the works for Baldur’s Gate 3. Set over 100 years after the end of Baldur’s Gate 2, the in-development campaign not only returns players to the City of Gold, Athkatla, but does so with a brand new story, six-to-eight custom companions and a whole host of side quests. Speaking to VideoGamer, the team behind the upcoming mod revealed one of the coolest returning areas in the game: Irenicus’ Dungeon. The opening area of the second game, players of BG2 will remember having to escape the dungeon at the start of the game. In Path to Menzoberranzan, players will be exploring the treacherous location, delving deep into its depths. “We are revisiting Irenicus’ Dungeon over a hundred years later,” project lead Thomas Loughlin told us. “And we will see that things are quite eerily the same, but also very, very different.” Every room in the BG3 mod has been carefully designed. (Also, worth noting: standard BG3 characters are being used as placeholders for new party members.) The original Baldur’s Gate 2 story saw players escaping the dungeon to enter Wukeen’s Promenade and begin the game’s story. This time, after arriving in Athkatla, you’ll be tasked with finding out why strange occurrences keep happening around the iconic marketplace. The first stop? The dungeon. “Irenicus’ Dungeon in Baldur’s Gate 2 is the, you know, the quintessential starting location for most,” Loughlin continued. “Most video games, you awake to find yourself in a dark room, and it was one of my favorite parts of the game. You awake as the Bhaalspawn and you’ve got to escape what we call Chateau Irenicus or Irenicus’ Dungeon itself.” While the Path to Menzoberranzan team is revisiting a lot of places from Baldur’s Gate 2, a lot of changes have occurred. Alongside the 100-year time-skip, the move from the isometric structure of the original to the 3D setup of BG3 means that a lot of design changes have to happen anyway. Streets will be redesigned, buildings are moving and dungeons have new layouts to make proper use of the game engine’s 3D movement and free-form combat. “Adventurer’s Mart, which, you know, if you walk around Baldur’s Gate 2, it’s a very stock standard isometric square box of a shop,” Loughlin used as an example. “We’ve reimagined that in a diffeent way. We’re taking all of the references and bringing them up to date.” The team is looking at everything in Baldur’s Gate 2 from both a lore perspective—is this area still here 120 years later—and a design perspective. The massive jump in gameplay freedom from Baldur’s Gate 2 to Baldur’s Gate 3 means that a 1-to-1 recreation could work, but it wouldn’t be as satisfying as a true reimagining. “We’ve reimagined this whole place to be more vibrant, more exciting.”PATH TO MENZOBERRANZAN PROJECT LEAD THOMAS LOUGHLIN Just for Wukeen’s Promenade, the giant mod team is doing some fantastic work. Concept artists are designing new areas and reimagined parts of Athkatla, modellers are then creating new assets for them, coders are working on new scripts and a huge team of writers is making sure the lore of the mod fits within The Forgotten Realms. But at the end of the day, the team just wants to make a fun new experience for Baldur’s Gate 3 players. “With Baldur’s Gate 3, you can look around anywhere. So like, we’ve reimagined this whole place to be more vibrant, more exciting. There’s more things in there, it’s a huge bazaar, it’s the central marketplace of one of the largest cities within Faerun. Athkatla is booming, it’s never been better, it’s called the City of Coin for a reason. It’s going to be wealthier, more vibrant. But just like real life, there’s are peaks of wealth… there are also dips and troughs of poverty and crime, and that’s the juxtaposition of being a great and wealthy city, or a great and wealthy place.” From my time sitting with the team, of which we will definitely have more to share, the Path to Menzoberranzan rivals that of many AAA studios I’ve talked to. The passion on display is limitless, and the team’s dedication mirrors the dedication of BG3’s brilliant community. With other modders creating unhinged mods to summon literally hundreds of creatures, or designing World of Warcraft-themed campaigns, Baldur’s Gate 3 has a long life ahead of it just from the passion of fans alone. Baldur’s Gate 3 Platform(s): macOS, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X Genre(s): Adventure, RPG, Strategy 10 VideoGamer Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share