Larian Studios was not planning to keep making Baldur's Gate games when it embarked on its journey through the Forgotten Realms. For decades it had been telling stories in its own universe rather than playing with someone else's toys. For a brief time after the launch of Baldur's Gate 3, however, Baldur's Gate 4 was on the table.
In March, Larian announced that it was done with Baldur's Gate 3 and was moving on from D&D, but it turns out that this was only after it had started working on a new Forgotten Realms adventure, one it ultimately decided not to complete. Larian CEO Swen Vincke says that "you could already play stuff".
"So if something is super successful, obviously everyone's [asking] you, 'When are you going to make the next one?'", Vincke tells me during an interview ahead of Baldur's Gate 3's first anniversary. "And when you, as a developer, come out of this little miserable cave that you've been sitting in for many, many hours as you're finishing your thing, you're vulnerable."
In this vulnerable state, Vincke was open to the idea of more Baldur's Gate. "You tend to be prone to do the obvious thing, which was really just make an add-on, or a standalone add-on, or start working on a sequel, because it's the easiest route to take."
So Larian started working on a follow-up. Initially, an expansion. "We've got the engine, got everything in here, all we need to do is add extra levels or just make some new stories—how hard can it be?", he says.
Progress was quick because "the production machine was still warm". But coming right off Baldur's Gate 3, Vincke knew it wouldn't all be smooth sailing. "I mean, we'd probably have to redo it 10 times. And do we really want to do this for the next three years?" For an expansion, it didn't seem worth it. But for a full sequel, Baldur's Gate 4? "Oh yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. Let's make BG4. All the stuff that we did for this thing, we can just move it in there, people are gonna love it."
But then that would be even more years, "doing the same thing", and that didn't have much appeal for Vincke or the developers.
"We should be looking at how we can do stuff that we get excited about," he says. So he spoke to his teams, broaching the subject of moving on. And the consensus seemed to be 'let's do it'. "It very rapidly turned, and I don't think, as developers, we ever felt better since we took that decision. Honestly, you really cannot explain or express it, how liberated we are."
Larian is now gearing up for two new RPGs, one of which it held a summit for in Barcelona last month, with Vincke pitching ideas to the rest of the company.
During the interview, we spoke at length about Larian's past, present and future, and while D&D fans might wish there was more Baldur's Gate coming, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about Larian's next original game.
