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One Year Later, Larian Reflects On Baldur's Gate 3's Success, Future Plans, And Canceling DLC: "Ever Since, We've Felt Better" - IGN
A year after the release of Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios shares its thoughts on success, canceling its DLC, and working on its next game.
www.ign.com
Interview covers a wide range of stuff, I'll highlight a few things that out to me.
Cancelling the DLC.
Despite months of patches and media attention on Baldur's Gate 3, Larian is already hard at work on its next project, and while we don't know exactly what it is, we know it isn't Baldur's Gate 4. In March,
Vincke announced the studio's plans to end its partnership with Wizards of the Coast, meaning Larian won't be making DLC or a sequel to their critical success. Several months after this announcement, Vincke says the folks at Larian have no regrets about the decision.
"We actually decided this only at Christmas. We were working on stuff, but [...] our hearts weren't as much in it, probably because we spent so much time already in it. So it was time for us to do new things, and ever since, we've felt better. We [got] our developer joy back [...] and that's the prime thing, right? If you don't have that, you can't make anything good."
The fan reactions to the VAs.
Baldur's Gate 3 finally launched on August 3, 2023, but Wilde didn't feel the full impact the game would have for a few weeks. Between her TikTok posts and a video of the cast reading thirsty tweets, there was a considerable amount of online traction, but she didn't comprehend the physical size of the fanbase until MCM London Comic Con. Jennifer English, who plays Shadowheart in the game, felt the same way.
"I'd gone to London Comic Con when the game was in early access and I remember being really honored that I had 10 people in my queue," English says. "I think I'd made my rent that weekend. And I was like, 'Wow, that's amazing.'" When she came back the following year, her lines had grown to six-hour wait times and the cast needed a security detail to handle the number of people stopping them on the show floor.
Shadowheart's VA didn't love Shadowheart HAH
In addition to the influx of followers, English says the online community's response to Shadowheart has made her more fond of the role. Despite initially not liking the character, she says, "The stuff that [players] like in Shadowheart is kind of the stuff I like about myself," and that fans have latched on to parts of the character that she hadn't even consciously portrayed. Meanwhile, Wilde was surprised Lae'zel was "so polarizing" at first, with many fans being turned away by her stand-offish attitude, though that attitude eventually softened. She says, "I was getting a lot of delayed responses, even now, where people are like, 'Oh, you know what? On my third playthrough, I gave her a chance and now I love her."
Moving forward.
"We're in the luxurious position now that we can pick our own destiny and our own path, which is really cool," Vincke says later in our conversation. "So I hope that we can sustain that. [I have] two main goals for the studio: being able to make things that we like to make and making sure that it's sustainable so we can continue doing so."
This philosophy is directly opposed to much of what we see in the current gaming landscape. Between acquisitions, layoffs, crunching, and executives chasing infinite, exponential growth, it's a breath of fresh air to hear about a developer settling for a stable working environment. Baldur's Gate 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, in large part because of the personal, hardcrafted nature evident in its design. One year after the game's launch, it's nice to see that the people responsible for that product are excited about what's to come and satisfied with the work they've done.
Patch 7 will come with new evil ending cinematics and apparently more companion reactivity according to a few beta testers, as well as mod support on PC with it arriving on consoles a few weeks later or so. After that, Larian will be largely moving on from BG3 besides bug fixes and tweaks, based on what they've communicated. Been an amazing year for them.
