It’s been a great time to be a fan of interesting-looking Baldur’s Gate 3 custom campaign mods so far this year, and that certainly doesn’t look to be changing any time soon. Another project that looks pretty ambitious has just put out a demo, and it’s all about what happens to the base game’s Shadow-Cursed Lands once their namesake’s been lifted.
Yep, sorry, I’m potentially adding another thing to your BG3 custom campaign demo backlog that may also include the likes of modder Moezilla’s The Grand Theater and SquallyDaBeanz’s Forsaken. My bad.
Anyway, this new one is called ‘Shadow Curse Reborn‘, and is the work of modder Burnin094. In the demo, you seemingly get to experience the first bit of what’ll be the first act of the campaign, set in the base game’s Shadow-Cursed Lands, but with a little less of the shadow curse.
“After the removal of the shadow curse, some of the corrupted managed to get rid of the possession. They returned to life, but the possession did not go away without a trace. During physical or magical activity, the [eyes of the] corrupted darkened, black veins appeared on their bodies, and during sleep they were disturbed by visions from the Kingdom of Shadows.
“In order to ensure safety and prevent the spread of the supposed threat, the harpers, with the support of the fire fists, isolated most of the ‘corrupted’ in Moonrise Towers.” Gnarly. So, your mission in this demo is to escape from Moonrise “either as a fugitive, or an ally of the Harpers”, then follow a path a “squad of ‘corrupted’ Githyanki used to escape the same place. You’ll need to start a fresh character, and can bring along or recruit a small party of companions, including Lae’zel and Quil Grootslang
Burnin094’s plans for the full thing sound pretty ambitious. They mention wanting to properly strip away the remaining elements of the shadow curse from Act 2’s map, as well as adding two more acts beyond the opening on they’re working on at the moment. The second one will take place in the wilderness and Rosymorn Monastery, and the last bit in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, Avernus, and possibly the Underdark.
It also sounds like they plan on doing something different cutscene-wise, writing: “If everyone copies Larian’s dialogues, players will quickly get tired of it. It takes a lot of effort and time. Most of the dialogues will be done in the spirit of old RPGs. Perhaps, over time, voice acting, frames with 2D or 3D portraits will be added. Perhaps it will be possible to use photo mode for some scenes.”
Does the premise of Shadow Curse Reborn sound interesting to you? Let us know below, and also if you want to know if you’ll be able to shag a bear in an upcoming update to the Stardew Valley/BG3 crossover mod, we’ve got you covered.