Larian Studios - The Inspiration behind Project E

Swen 'Lar' Vincke is teasing Divi Project E ahead of the upcoming reveal with a new blog post that explains his motivation. As fans will know, Lar is a huge fan of Ultima VII and Divine Divinity was inspired by Origin's classic - he goes on to explain Larian made mistakes both Beyond Divinity and Divinity II that moved them away from that inspiration that he regrets and Project E will attempt to address that. There's also a teaser video showing journalists being shown the new title at Larian's offices - though nothing is actually revealed.

Ever since I started making RPG’s, I’ve been looking to recreate for other people the same experience I had with Ultima VII – it really is my drive. Now, in my mind I never succeeded in this but if I can believe the reviews and the fanmails, apparently Divine Divinity somehow struck the same chord for a lot of people. Which was quite motivating of course. The knowledge that even a subset of the original ambitions managed to satisfy players implied that if ever we succeeded in realizing the vision behind those ambitions, we might very well have a very big hit on our hands.
But as it happened, after the first Divinity, I lost track a bit – Beyond Divinity definitely wasn’t as good as Divine Divinity, and I always regretted making that one, even if it got ok reviews. Then the second mistake was made – the joys of console development steered Divinity II far away from the original idea, and so many compromises were made in that game that what shipped was but a shadow of what I had envisioned it to be.
While some of that was rectified it with the release of Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga, in truth there are only a few gameplay moments in there that come close to the reason I set up this company.
So I explained to the journalists that with project E, I wanted to rectify that. When I’ll be playing the final version of project E, I hope that I’m going to get my Ultima VII vibe back, the method being recreating all of the values present in these masterpieces, and then taking it one step further.

More information.

That's… Quite hype inducing for me.

Please let project E have an isometric view.

They already stated that one of their new projects was going to use an isometric view, so I assume this is it.

I'd like an isometric view but, either way, Divinity 3 is an instant buy for me.

I'm excited.

I was going to "isometric", but I see that's already been covered.

You know its isometric, he said it on his blog half a year ago.

Haleluyah !

The sweetests words a guy can hear. I made mistakes, I will do it better.

Since U7 is my favorite game of all time, I am very excited about what Project E may have to offer. Looking forward to learning more about this game.

I had forgotten which project was isometric. After checking it is indeed Project E, which is Divinity 3, that has made my day. I guess that makes it a true return to Divine Divinity.

Originally Posted by Swen Vincke
Ever since I started making RPG’s, I’ve been looking to recreate for other people the same experience I had with Ultima VII – it really is my drive.

This makes me very hopeful and semi-hyped for Project E.

Originally Posted by Swen Vincke
Then the second mistake was made – the joys of console development steered Divinity II far away from the original idea, and so many compromises were made in that game that what shipped was but a shadow of what I had envisioned it to be.
While some of that was rectified it with the release of Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga, in truth there are only a few gameplay moments in there that come close to the reason I set up this company.

And this, oh good lordy, this makes me very happy and very hopeful for Project E. I never got much into Div II (neither ED nor DKS) and always felt it had a lot of promise and some great ideas, but the implementation and end result didn't live up to that promise. To me it was a flawed gem that never really got to truly shine.

Also, isometric FTW!

i wonder what the release date will be. Cant wait to play a new DD again.

I've been to their studios this week, but cannot tell what I've seen for another week or so. Let me just say that I was surprised a lot by what I've seen. My assumptions about what Project E was were completely wrong. I'm very enthusiastic about what I saw and I think this game will go down very well with the majority of our visitors.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
I had forgotten which project was isometric. After checking it is indeed Project E, which is Divinity 3, that has made my day. I guess that makes it a true return to Divine Divinity.

So it's confirmed that Project E is Divinity 3? I was under the impression that they were separate… that Project E was going to take place in the Divinity universe but wasn't the sequel to DKS.

Originally Posted by JDR13
So it's confirmed that Project E is Divinity 3? I was under the impression that they were separate… that Project E was going to take place in the Divinity universe but wasn't the sequel to DKS.

I'm fairly sure you're right. I think E is in the Divinity universe but is not Divinity 3.

Originally Posted by Myrthos
My assumptions about what Project E was were completely wrong. I'm very enthusiastic about what I saw and I think this game will go down very well with the majority of our visitors.

Party, turn based isometric, with tactical combat and heavy on the CnC ?!
Shit, I was expecting an ARPG myself …

Originally Posted by Myrthos
I've been to their studios this week, but cannot tell what I've seen for another week or so. Let me just say that I was surprised a lot by what I've seen. My assumptions about what Project E was were completely wrong. I'm very enthusiastic about what I saw and I think this game will go down very well with the majority of our visitors.

That's good to hear. Makes two games I'm looking forward to playing from them this year or next year.

From what he is saying sounds like there focusing on the pc and not on a multi-platform release like Divinity 2.

Now I wonder witch isometric will come out first, divinity 3 or eschalon book 3.

I really liked DKS; quite a bit more than the orignial Surprise they have such a low opinion on of the game. My biggest gripe was that some secitons felt 'cut short'.

"From what he is saying sounds like there focusing on the pc and not on a multi-platform release like Divinity 2."

Honestly, this surprises me. Although I'm always happy to see more emphasis placed on PC development, I got the sense that D2's success was at least largely dependent on console availability.


" I really liked DKS; quite a bit more than the orignial Surprise they have such a low opinion on of the game. My biggest gripe was that some secitons felt 'cut short'."

It's odd. At first, the game felt painfully generic and unpolished. Also, nothing about it, in retrospect, seems fantastic. Nonetheless, I've poured more hours into it than most of the big (and middle) budget competition. I think I ended up with around 70 hours clocked in DKS.
At the end of the day, it was just a solid RPG, with no -major- weaknesses and no -major- strengths. I wish we'd have more of them, as I really enjoyed it.