It’s very obvious to everybody who knows me that I loveBaldur’s Gate 3. I’ve written extensively about it since release, and still do most days. Despite having a lot of other games to occupy myself with, I continue to carve out time in my schedule to work on finishing my first playthrough, which is a big deal sinceI rarely play games to completion.It was even my Game of the Year.
But I’m still critical of its flaws, of which there are many. Bugs are still an issue,as are underdeveloped side characters, but the problem that’s concerned me most is Larian’s attentiveness to its fanbase. I know a lot of people see this as a good thing, but I disagree. I went into detail about ithere, but very often when smaller developers have breakout hits, they end up sinking years into those games after release when it might be better served to move on. They patch endlessly and create expansion after expansion in an effort to give their fans what they want for as long as possible.
Dead Cells, No Man’s Sky, and Don’t Starve are all games that have done this and are largely treated as live-service games as a result, despite not having been created for that purpose.
It’s an understandable impulse, but ultimately not one that is healthy for a studio that could be moving on to something else instead. Yet the practice is common enough thatwe see players getting upsetwhen developers stop creating new content for games that have already had years and years of work put into them. Larian hasdefinitely been guilty of fan service, which is why I was concerned that it would give in to the pressure of expanding on Baldur’s Gate 3 indefinitely.
So when I heard that Lariancancelled its upcoming expansion because it wasn’t excited to make it, I was thrilled. I was just as excited as anybody about potential expansions – I even wrotean entire articleabout what could be feasible and fun DLC. I haven’t finished my first playthrough, and I already want more. But knowing that Larian has made a conscious decision to move on from the game entirely, with CEO Swen Vincke saying that the game is complete as is and “doesn’t need more”, makes me very optimistic for the state of the industry and how smaller developers might act in the future.
It’s important that developers are able to resist overwhelming fan demand and move on from the games that made them famous, especially if studios know they cancapitalise on their newfound fame and create new things that they’re actually passionate about. Vincke is right – Baldur’s Gate 3 is a complete story as it is, and there’s no point to Larian forcing itself to create more stories within that world if the game doesn’t need it. Nobody does their best work when they feel like it’s a chore instead of an exciting project, and there has never been a better time than now for Larian to turn its eyes to something entirely different.
I only hope that more developers have the courage to do the unsafe thing: leaving behind games that are already successful and well-loved, so that they can take big creative swings at something else entirely. Larian is moving on, and the beautiful thing about that is that we can move on too, but we don’t have to. Baldur’s Gate 3 is already endlessly replayable, with so many different Origin characters, classes, races, and important choices that it would be hard to unintentionally get the same experience twice. We neverneededDLC to begin with, and so I’m glad we won’t get any.
Baldur’s Gate 3
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Baldur’s Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.
