Cut Baldur's Gate III content shows Astarion killing Shadowheart

As he stands in the final game, Astarion is a beloved Baldur's Gate III companion. A vampire with just enough charm to counter his evil tendencies, he has one of the most-rewarding questlines in the game, with a lot of ways to decide his fate depending on the way you play.

It's likely that had a certain piece of cut material made it into the game, few players would have seen Astarion's quest to the end. In a video that has been doing the rounds on Reddit, we see quite a grisly scene of Astarion strangling Shadowheart.

Speculation points to this being a cut scene from Astarion's origin playthrough, where if you'd have failed to feed off a companion, you would have had the option to kill them. This makes more sense than a companion killing another in a scene the player is apparently not involved in.

As Shadowheart is possibly the only companion more loved than Astarion by the wider Baldur's Gate III fanbase, players reckon that Astarion wouldn't have survived long if this had happened in their games. If they weren't the ones playing him, of course. In the final product, when playing as Astarion via an Origin run, you'll still be given the chance to try and feed on a companion, but instead of killing them when spotted, you'll get scene of dialogue where they're quite annoyed at you for biting on their neck in the middle of the night.