The Silence is Broken: Path to Menzoberranzan Realigns for Full-Scale Development

The Baldur’s Gate 3 modding community has been closely tracking the development of Path to Menzoberranzan, the custom campaign mod that has been widely touted as the closest thing to official DLC for Larian Studios’ critically acclaimed RPG. After several months of relative public silence following the successful compilation of their “first working build” in mid-2025, the development team has issued a comprehensive progress update that clarifies the project’s status and future direction.

In a public announcement, the mod’s community manager, Andrew Simone, attributed the quiet period to a necessary “re-think” of the project’s internal operations. What began as a focused effort to rebuild a single area from Baldur’s Gate II—the iconic city of Athkatla—has organically ballooned into a “full-scale campaign” with massive scope. This substantial increase in size necessitated an overhaul of the production pipeline to ensure that the volunteer-driven effort could sustain the demands of a project of this magnitude.

The developers assured the community that the summer was spent “tightening up our production pipeline” and restructuring collaboration methods, a critical step for ambitious, large-scale fan projects to avoid the common fate of being abandoned. The team is now “kicking back into high gear,” signaling a renewed public push for content reveals.

A Journey Back to Athkatla and the Underdark

The project’s monumental goal is to deliver a new Baldur’s Gate 3 experience that is entirely separate from the main game’s ‘Absolute’ storyline. It is set over a century after the events of Baldur’s Gate II and promises a return to legendary locations from the Dungeons & Dragons universe, all rendered in BG3’s modern cinematic style:

• Athkatla Reimagined: The “City of Coin” from Shadows of Amn is being completely rebuilt, offering a massive, explorable urban environment with new quests, factions, and a deep, branching narrative.
• Irenicus’ Dungeon Revisited: The chilling opening area of BG2 is confirmed to return, with the modders promising that the century of time passage has made the treacherous dungeon simultaneously familiar and eerily different.
• The Drow City of Menzoberranzan: The infamous subterranean home of the Drow—Minthara’s hometown—serves as the campaign’s ultimate destination, promising an adventure deep into the perilous Underdark.

The campaign is slated to feature a full roster of between six and eight new, fully voice-acted companions, a detail that significantly elevates the project’s professional ambition and content value for players.

Character Teases and Recruitment Drive Targets RPG Talent

The most exciting development for fans is the promise of imminent character reveals. The team teased four new faces that players can expect to encounter and potentially recruit for their new party:

• A Drow Cleric of Eilistraee, the Drow goddess of good, a complex and compelling religious choice given the campaign’s namesake.
• A Swashbuckling Human, hinting at classic adventuring tropes and possibly a charismatic, Dexterity-based combatant.
• A Man Resembling Frankenstein’s Monster, a mysterious figure that suggests unique character origins and potential for profound moral storytelling.
• And more! The team promises further reveals in the coming weeks, likely leveraging the interest around the spooky Halloween season for one of the character announcements.

To support the revitalized development push, the mod team has also launched a public recruitment drive for talented volunteers. They are specifically seeking expertise in high-demand roles across their technical, user experience, and design departments, including:

• Systems Programming
• UX Designer
• Emotional UX Lead

While an initial goal of a mid-2025 demo release has been moved due to the scope increase, the continued progress and the transparent development update solidify Path to Menzoberranzan as the most significant and most anticipated modding project in the entire CRPG community. Fans of Baldur’s Gate 3 and the Forgotten Realms lore should follow the project closely as it moves toward a public release in the coming years.