The Duffer brothers, creators of Stranger Things, have said the final battle of the TV series was partially inspired by Baldur’s Gate 3. Matt Duffer was apparently playing the game while devising the showdown.
Note: there are spoilers for the final battle ahead.
“We were thinking about D&D and I was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 at the time,” Duffer told Variety, “and we felt it was very important that the only way for them to defeat [the mind flayer] was for the entire party to work together. Everyone had fully realised — either through self-acceptance or they’ve resolved all their various issues — moving into that final battle, they’re absolutely primed. They’re the ultimate team, and it’s the party working all together to defeat this thing.
“And they each have their own individual skills, right? And that’s where I go back to Dungeons & Dragons and something like Baldur’s Gate. Because that’s how you take down these monsters that seem otherwise unstoppable. Lots of video game references were applied to that final battle.”
The final battle of Stranger Things pits nearly the entire cast of goodies against a colossal spidery crab monster in the wasteland of Dimension X. This is the physical manifestation of the shadowy mind flayer we see repeatedly through the series, and which Henry Creel, AKA Vecna, partners with – he takes up residence literally inside the beast.
Links to Baldur’s Gate 3 are to be expected of course, with both entertainment properties being heavily rooted in, or based upon, Dungeons & Dragons, and both revolving around a mind flayer plot. In Stranger Things it’s more euphemistic, however, used as a kind of lingo the central characters – the kids – apply to strange enemies they face. In BG3 you face an actual mind flayer threat, coincidentally also having to destroy the mega-mind controlling it (which isn’t a giant spidery crab).
Whether Matt Duffer played Baldur’s Gate 3 for inspiration or for entertainment purposes is unclear – the interview doesn’t touch upon it – but I expect it’s a bit of both. The Duffer brothers have said before that they aren’t, despite appearances, long-serving D&D fans – they didn’t grow up playing it. Perhaps BG3 was a more approachable way into learning the game.
Matt Duffer also didn’t clarify which other video game references were in the final Stranger Things battle, though if you ask me, that mind flayer spider crab thing looks a lot like a corpser from the Gears of War series. It being a giant enemy crab also brings to mind Sony’s infamous ‘giant enemy crab’ meme from Genji: Days of the Blade.