Dispel Magic would have doubled the size of Baldur's Gate 3, which is why it was removed

The director of Baldur's Gate 3, Swen Vincke, has revealed that Larian Studios intended to include Dispel Magic, but doing so would have doubled the size of the game.

If there is one thing that most Baldur's Gate 3 players would agree upon, it is that the game provides more than enough content to satisfy everyone. It may surprise you to hear that one of the biggest and most content-rich games of 2023 would have become even larger, thanks to a single spell that was almost included in the late stages of development.

This spell is Dispel Magic, a popular choice in Dungeons & Dragons, which does exactly what it promises by ending magical spells cast upon enemies and objects. It essentially acts as if the duration of the spell had expired. It can also be used to counter a wizard's spell and even suppress the abilities of a magical item. Simply put, it is an incredibly helpful spell for anyone working with magic, and it has an enormous range of applications.

As reported by GamesRadar+, it is precisely this vast range of possibilities that led to its removal from Baldur's Gate 3. During an interview for the Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel, the director of Baldur's Gate 3, Swen Vincke, was asked if there was anything that Larian Studios wanted to add to the game but couldn't. Vincke promptly responded that the team wanted to include Dispel Magic, but it caused too many headaches and introduced too many variables to integrate it properly.

The decision to remove Dispel Magic seems to have been made relatively late in the development cycle of the game, as Vincke points out that it "sat on the table for a long time" before eventually becoming "too much" due to the sheer amount of magic in the game. According to Vincke, internal playtesting often raised the question, "What happens if I come in and use Dispel Magic?", indicating that it was a complex mechanism that the team had to tackle.

Indeed, Vincke notes that Dispel Magic would have been such a significant feature that it would have "literally doubled the size of the game just to properly support that one spell." While it is regrettable that such an iconic and frequently used D&D spell did not make it into Baldur's Gate 3, Vincke points out that there are still some "traces" of Dispel Magic in the game, indicating that the team intended to integrate it into the gameplay.

However, it's not as if Baldur's Gate 3 needed to be even larger, right? Perhaps we should even be grateful for the absence of Dispel Magic.