Baldur's Gate 3 Panache Bears Hard on Larian Studios' New Projects. „This Is One of Our Biggest Problems”
Baldur's Gate 3 is a huge RPG, however, which gives Larian studio a hard time as the developers try to come up with something new for future games.
The vastness of Baldur's Gate 3 is making it a bit harder to work on the new game at Larian Studios. The developer already mentioned that the sheer number of awards the company receives for its hit RPGs is a kind of obstacle, but that's not all.
Adam Smith, the scriptwriter of BG 3, emphasized in an interview for PC Gamer that the third Baldur's Gate causes problems for Larian for another reason. The team wants to create something completely new - hence the decision to abandon the Baldur's Gate brand, even though the continuation of the third installment would certainly attract crowds - and one of the projects being developed is supposed to "push many boundaries."
The problem is that during discussions between Larian Studios developers regarding the shape of the next project, it too often turns out that the idea in question has already been implemented in Baldur's Gate 3. It's hard to be surprised - the title is so huge that players, even a year after its debut on PCs, are still discovering new secrets.
This isn't the first time for Larian, and similar problems already appeared during the development of BG 3 (although probably not on such a scale). Nonetheless, Smith goes so far as to say that it's currently "one of the biggest problems" for Larian Studios.
Have they [players] already seen this pattern? Have they already used these verbs in this order? Have they already had this emotional arc? So you're constantly trying to make sure that they're getting a new experience, and you're not just repeating yourself, and you're not just giving them content for the sake of content.
Plot on the fly
The difference between the scale of this problem before and after BG 3 is evidenced by two pieces of information. One concerns the number of employees at Larian Studios. About 40 people worked on the first Divinity: Original Sin, and about 120 developers supervised Original Sin 2. Now, Larian employs nearly five hundred people, most of whom joined the team during the development of Baldur's Gate 3 (and not only; the studio opened a branch in Poland).
The second notable piece of information is the time spent by the devs on the plot. As it turns out, the story in Divinity: Original Sin was something created "on the fly" in about 3 days. The team focused on developing a good combat system and the possibility of playing with friends.
Meanwhile, according to CEO Swen Vincke, Larian Studios is devoting "years" to discussions about the storyline and characters. This is probably one of the reasons why BG 3 spent 3 years in early access, which also explains the absurd number of player choices that the developers had in mind (although they still missed a few "exploits").
Ego Draconis and Larian Studios' aversion to publishers
Vincke also recalled that a game project similar to Baldur's Gate 3 could not be developed by a major publisher, due to the unique working environment (here the developer was echoing the words of the Hooded Horse company CEO). The creator recounted the history of Divinity: Ego Draconis' development, which almost led him to leave the gaming industry 15 years ago.
The action game from 2009 wasn't bad, but it's sometimes called the worst game of Larian Studios. The head of Larian Studios may agree with this opinion, as he mentioned in an interview that it could be a "groundbreaking game." However, as he admitted, although the whole thing was ambitious, many elements in Ego Draconis just weren't "done right."
Partly, it's the fault of the aforementioned "ambitions": the idea simply overwhelmed the then-small Larian studio. However, what determined the "failure" of the title was the "publisher's" pressure to release an unfinished product (which would explain at least some of the problems of Ego Draconis). At that time, Vincke was considering "leaving" the gaming industry.
Fortunately for turn-based RPG fans, Vincke ultimately decided not to quit game development, but to quit publishers, as he put it, "you have to do something right eventually" instead of having failure after failure. After another game, Larian Studios independently released three more titles, thanks to which we owe the duology of Original Sin and Baldur’' Gate 3, which even a year after its premiere remains one of the most popular titles on Steam.
