Baldur's Gate 3 Devs Say No to Industry Giants; Takeover Refused
Baldur's Gate 3 enjoys increasing popularity among gamers. However, the game's development cycle was by no means straightforward, and the very independence of the developers guaranteed - as mentioned by the owner and CEO of Larian Studios.
Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian Studios debuted yesterday and has already recorded an impressive number of concurrent players on Steam - currently the game's record stands at 814,666 people present in the game at the same time (via SteamDB). Putting the gameplay itself aside, however, it's worth looking at the history of the developers, who may have been eneded up acquired by Microsoft.
Larian Studios' past problems in developing the game
Although one can already talk about the gigantic success of Baldur's Gate 3, the work on the title was not easy, as stated by the owner and CEO of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, for BNN Bloomberg.
- Baldur's Gate 3 debuted in Steam Early Access in 2020. In total, about 2.5 million people decided to buy the unfinished game.
- During Early Access, the team struggled to develop the game. Due to the pandemic, the studio improving the game's performance was shut down, and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Larian Studios had to close its branch in St. Petersburg and evacuate its employees.
- Another problem arose in March this year, when Bethesda set the release date of Starfield for September 6 - a date close to the one in which the Belgians had planned to release Baldur's Gate 3 (August 31).
- Following the announcement of Starfield's launch date a special meeting was held at the headquarters of Larian Studios. Ultimately Vincke decided that the PC version of Baldur will be released earlier than the one coming to PlayStation 5.
What's more, Microsoft was interested in acquiring Larian Studios, but Vincke had no intention of selling his company. As he said: "I'm getting older, but I'm not done yet."
The head of the studio responsible for the third installment of Baldur's Gate also pointed out that the new owner may seek to maximize profits while ignoring creativity.
"The strength of this company is that we are very much involved in gameplay development, and I make the final decisions myself. This enables us to further develop our own games," said Swen Vincke.
Recall that for now Baldur's Gate 3 is available on PC (Steam and GOG). From September 6, the game will also be available for PlayStation 5 owners to try out. It is also worth noting that GOG has prepared a a special contest, in which you can win a free copy of this excellent RPG.
