Stranger Things recently wrapped after almost a decade of being on the air. On New Year’s Day, the final episode, with a whopping two-hour runtime, aired on Netflix and broke the hearts of millions of fans worldwide. Whether you loved it or hated it, the ultimate episode wrapped up almost every core story put forward by the writers over the last ten years.
In a recent interview, the Duffer brothers, the creators of Stranger Things, revealed what Dungeons & Dragons-themed game inspired the ending battle against the Mind Flayer and Vecna in Stranger Things.
‘That’s How You Take Down These Monsters’
In a recent interview with Variety, Ross and Matt Duffer, the creators and directive minds behind Stranger Things, offered up all kinds of information about the show, how it wrapped, and what it took to get to this point.
Midway through the interview, the talk turned to the final battle between Vecna, the physical manifestation of the Mind Flayer, and the good guys from Hawkins. It was a phenomenal sequence that showed how these unlikely heroes were able to get the upper hand on a behemoth of an opponent like the Mind Flayer.
Matt Duffer explained what inspired the final battle:
We were thinking about D&D, and I was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 at the time, and we felt it was very important that the only way for them to defeat it was for the entire party to work together. Everyone had fully realized — 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.
Baldur’s Gate 3 and Stranger Things are inherently linked to the same Dungeons & Dragons universe. The core exception is that Baldur’s Gate 3 remains more aligned with the source material, while Stranger Things is more inspired by it and uses references in an alternate way.
For instance, the young heroes in Stranger Things name the series’ Big Bad the ‘Mind Flayer’, flanked by ‘Vecna’, but that’s not their true identity; it’s just what the D&D-loving kids refer to them as based on their attributes and make-up.
Are you surprised to learn that Baldur’s Gate 3 inspired the ending to Stranger Things? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Detroit: Become Human sold a million copies in two weeks
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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