In a talk at GDC this week,Larian Studios' CEO Swen Vincke announced thatBaldur’s Gate 3will be the finalBaldur’s Gategame the beloved RPG studio will develop. Not only will there not be a Baldur’s Gate 4, but Larian won’t be using theDungeons & Dragonslicense again, and expansions for Baldur’s Gate 3 have also been canceled.
“Baldur’s Gate 3 will always have … a warm spot in our hearts. We’ll forever be proud of it, but we’re not going to continue it,” Vinckesaid. “We’re not going to make new expansions, which everybody is expecting us to do. We’re not going to make Baldur’s Gate 4, which everybody is expecting us to do. We’re going to move on, we’re going to move away from D&D, and we’re going to start making a new thing.”
Larian is leaving the future of the IP up to publisherWizards of the Coast, which means that after 23 years, Baldur’s Gate fans are back where they were in 2001. After Baldur’s Gate 2’s release,BioWaredidlaunch the Throne of Bhaal expansion, but it never returned to Baldur’s Gate. It developed one more D&D game withNeverwinter Nights, made a licensed game withStar Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and then did its own thing for 20 years. Setting aside Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood in 2008 — a bizarre historical footnote — and the MMOStar Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare has strictly made its own IP since.Mass EffectandDragon Ageare incredibly iconic, beloved series that only exist because BioWare went its own way after KOTOR.
Given that Larian isn’t making Baldur’s Gate 4 andalsoisn’t immediately returning to its own beloved franchise Divinity for Original Sin 3as many expected they would, it seems Larian plans to blaze its own trail the same way BioWare did. There are two things that are natural to wonder in the wake of this surprising news. One, whatwillLarian do next? Two, who will develop Baldur’s Gate 4?
My answer to the first question is that it’s an impossible question to answer. Until Baldur’s Gate 3, nearly all of Larian’s games were in theDivinityseries, so there’s basically no precedent to look at. Only Larian can tell us what’s next.
My answer to the second question is that no one should. The big RPG studios who could handle a project on the scale of Baldur’s Gate 4 are working on their own franchises. BioWare is still cooking up new Mass Effect and Dragon Age games withWinds of Winter-esque speed.CD Projekt Redis working on the next Witcher and Cyberpunk games.Bethesdais digging itself out of the hole it dug with Starfield, hoping to deliver something that reverses the downward trend in quality many fans have observed over the course of its last few games.Obsidian, which has more experience making modern CRPGs than any other studio, save Larian, is working on Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, Grounded, and whateverbizarrely great historical point-and-click murder mystery adventure Josh Sawyer wants to make next.
If Obsidian wasn’t so busy, though, they would probably be the best non-Larian option.
Smaller studios wouldn’t make sense here, either. ZA/UM, which made theothermost critically acclaimed CRPG of the last decade, Disco Elysium, is being stripped for parts. inXile is making Clockwork Revolution, which currently has no release window. Harebrained Schemes is rebuilding after the commercial disappointment of The Lamplighters League. Firaxis is probably heading back to the safety of XCOM after Marvel’s Midnight Suns (unfairly) underperformed.
I don’t see a studio in the modern game development scene right now that is where Larian was when Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro offered it Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian was fresh off Divinity: Original Sin 2, theotherother most critically acclaimed CRPG of the last decade. It had proved it could handle a large-scale RPG. It had a proven development pipeline in place, having used early access for both Divinity: Original Sin games. It wasready, and so delivered a modern masterpiece at incredible scale.
It doesn’t seem fair to hand Baldur’s Gate to another developer who would be judged against what Larian accomplished. The studio set too high of a bar, and there don’t seem to be any other studios that are ready to clear that jump right now. The best thing for the Baldur’s Gate license is probably for it to sit for a while. Larian may come to a point where they need a sure thing, and return to it. Or maybe another studio arises that does have the track record, chops, and availability to take the challenge on. Until then, let’s let Larian move on and other RPG studios move up.
