Larian Studios - No more Baldur's Gate

[HiddenX]

Larian's next project has nothing to do with Baldur's Gate:

Larian Studios Won't Make Baldur's Gate 3 DLC, Expansions, or Baldur's Gate 4

The developer is moving away from D&D.

At a Game Developers Conference (GDC) panel today, Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke dropped something of a bombshell by revealing that the developer isn't planning to release any expansions or DLC for Baldur's Gate 3, nor a Baldur's Gate 4.

Instead, Vincke said at the panel, Larian plans to move away from Dungeons & Dragons entirely and do something new, leaving the IP in publisher Wizards of the Coast's hands.

It's a big surprise, considering the massive success of Baldur's Gate 3, with many fans assuming that a DLC or expansion would be on the way. Larian has released several major free patches that have added, among other things, a playable epilogue party.

Larian has also commented about the possibility of doing a DLC in the past. Speaking to IGN at gamescom 2023, senior product manager at Larian Studios Tom Butler said they had "discussions" on doing more for Baldur's Gate 3, although they were focused on patches then.

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Thanks Couchpotato!

More information.

 

[Vaelith]

This is great news to me. I'm looking forward to see what they'll do next.

 

[Couchpotato]

Nah Swens to busy working on his next RPG that will drawf BG3.

Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Is Working Toward An RPG That "Dwarfs" It

Larian has big plans for its future.

www.gamespot.com

Come on get that hype train a rolling once again.

Wonder what it will cost this time? Can we aim for a billion dollar RPG.

 

[Vaelith]

It's exciting but if it will dwarf BG3, expect nothing until 2030. It will rain a lot before anyone can be hyped about it.

 

[notdart]

I wonder if part of his decision is related to seeing the people he worked with and help make the project a success laid off.

 

[HiddenX]

If D&D is not too deep in the BG3 code then Larian could just re-use the engine and make another game with a different ruleset really fast.

 

[soola]

Nah Swens to busy working on his next RPG that will drawf BG3.

Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Is Working Toward An RPG That "Dwarfs" It

Larian has big plans for its future.

www.gamespot.com

Come on get that hype train a rolling once again.

Wonder what it will cost this time? Can we aim for a billion dollar RPG.

A lot of ways to interpret Sven’s meaning that might not related to “x extra hours of gameplay”.

Honestly I’d like some sort of kingdom management in their next rpg; I really enjoyed that in pillars of eternity 1 and pathfinder wotr. RDR2 mini-games were fun too.

 

[Couchpotato]

Please let it be the first Turn-based Star Wars RPG. Not likely but a man can dream. It will probably be a much larger Original Sin 3, or maybe another original setting.

Also yeah it shouldn't take as long as the assets and the team are still together.

 

[soola]

Please let it be the first Turn-based Star Wars RPG. Not likely but a man can dream. It will probably be a much larger Original Sin 3, or maybe another original setting.

Also yeah it shouldn't take as long as the assets and the team are still together.

I’d worry with Star Wars that Disney would intrude too much. Part of what worked with Wizards of the Coast was they gave them space. I’m not confident Disney would do that.

 

[soola]

If D&D is not too deep in the BG3 code then Larian could just re-use the engine and make another game with a different ruleset really fast.

Interesting thought experiment to think about how they could abstract away the D&D ruleset from the engine.

 

[JDR13]

I think there's zero chance Swen would do a Star Wars game. I feel like that IP doesn't mesh with their style.

I'm a little surprised by the "something new" comment though. I figured they were probably going to do Divinity: Original Sin III next. Unless by something new he simply means not D&D.

 

[Arkadia7]

This is surprising...(to me). They get a big hit with BG 3 and then just walk away? How much money are they leaving on the table in terms of profits and future D&D Baldur's Gate games? I wonder if there is more to the story, maybe WOTC didn't give Larian enough room for creativity or design in the BG 3 game, or mandated certain ideas that cramped Larian's style?

Huh. Just me speculating. It could just be maybe they don't like D&D 5th edition and how it translates to a video RPG game, and so they want to go back to their own designed RPG system, such as what they had in the Divinity Original Sin games... I dunno.

Regardless, if nothing else, I think you can say that this Larian CEO/founder is a pretty unique guy, and unorthodox.

 

[Morrandir]

Oh, that's a bummer.

 

[soola]

This is surprising...(to me). They get a big hit with BG 3 and then just walk away? How much money are they leaving on the table in terms of profits and future D&D Baldur's Gate games? I wonder if there is more to the story, maybe WOTC didn't give Larian enough room for creativity or design in the BG 3 game, or mandated certain ideas that cramped Larian's style?

Huh. Just me speculating. It could just be maybe they don't like D&D 5th edition and how it translates to a video RPG game, and so they want to go back to their own designed RPG system, such as what they had in the Divinity Original Sin games... I dunno.

Regardless, if nothing else, I think you can say that this Larian CEO/founder is a pretty unique guy, and unorthodox.

Pretty sure Sven said Wizards gave them a lot of room to do what they want.

Wizards also wanted them to do another D&D game so the cards were in Larian’s hands.

A more interesting discussion would be “who can take the BG4 mantle?”

 

[Stingray]

It's exciting but if it will dwarf BG3, expect nothing until 2030. It will rain a lot before anyone can be hyped about it.

He actually didn't say that their next game will "dwarf" everything else, just that he plans to make a game eventually that will. Next game, whatever it is, is just another step towards that eventual goal.

This article explains it far better, I think:

Baldur's Gate 3 boss says today's technology cannot handle his "very big RPG that will dwarf them all," hopes the PS6 generation "is gonna bring us closer"

Larian's already working on a new game that builds on the foundations of Baldur's Gate 3, but that's not even the big one

www.gamesradar.com

But even the GameSpot article linked by Couch says it pretty clearly: "Speaking to GameSpot at GDC, Vincke explained that Larian's next game also won't actually be the aforementioned "very big RPG," but will be another step toward realizing it."

 

[Couchpotato]

Pretty sure Sven said Wizards gave them a lot of room to do what they want.

Wizards also wanted them to do another D&D game so the cards were in Larian’s hands.

A more interesting discussion would be “who can take the BG4 mantle?”

No one as it'll be another decade or more based on past history. Also if you recall Hasbro laid off the whole team that worked with Lariain on Baldur's Gate 3.

Hasbro has even stated they don't think another BG3 will happen any time soon.

 

[KaosWarMonk]

Whilst it might be necessary for the business, Hasbro seem to be doing a lot of the wrong things (from a gamers pov) lately wrt managing D&D in general.

 

[Redglyph]

Nah Swens to busy working on his next RPG that will drawf BG3.

Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Is Working Toward An RPG That "Dwarfs" It

Larian has big plans for its future.

www.gamespot.com

Come on get that hype train a rolling once again.

Wonder what it will cost this time? Can we aim for a billion dollar RPG.

I've always thought their 'RPG that would dwarf them all' was BG3. It'll be hard to ever top that, and it'll take an awful lot of time.

I'll be sure to tell my grandchildren to keep an eye out for Larian's next game (once I have any).

I wouldn't mind a Star Wars game, but for now I also find it difficult to put Larian and SW in the same sentence. Who knows, though.

 

[zypek]

He explains it clearer in the video that accompanied the Gamespot article. The original plan was to move onto something new, but everyone was telling them to make a DLC or a sequel, because it would be so successful and make so much money. So they went with that idea for a while, but later in the year they came to the conclusion that is not what Larian is about, they want to do big new things, so they went back to their original plan.

I'm thinking they already have some other big IP lined up.

 

[Couchpotato]

Lariain has never done DLC or expansions so yeah this shouldn't be a surprise.

Correction they did one squirrel DLC for Original Sin 2.