Larian Studios Is Officially Done With The Baldur’s Gate Series
Larian Studios Is Officially Done With The Baldur’s Gate Series
A studio rep confirmed what founder Swen Vincke said during the Game Developers Conference
I bet this is a falling out with Hasbro execs on royalties. BG3 royalties were a cash cow this year for Hasbro, pushing Wizards (as a division) to be quite profitable, while almost all other divisions in their company lost money.
So now the agreement is over, and Larian is like: we will own the IP on our next project instead of paying $90M to Hasbro... And fair enough -- they've shown they can kick ass. Hasbro is probably gambling that it's the IP that made the money, and not Larian being magic in a bottle as a developer. So they'll kick tires on selling BG4 to another studio.
BG3 will go down in history as the legendary game before enshittification. Larian will make a few great games that don't sell as well -- before selling out to a whale that dumps money on the owner's front lawn (see also BioWare). The devs who made BG3 will found indie studios and make cool shit for a decade or two. So the wheel turns.
Larian already made DoS2 (which is better imo then bg3). In any case I look forward to the next Larian project.
This. If you like the mechanics of bg3, go play Divinity Original Sin 2. It has a lot of the same enhancements that Larian added to dnd for BG3. Including more comprehensive elemental fields and height mechanics.
And it has a great modding community.
The sad part about Larian and BG3 is I was hoping for a definitive edition that gave Karlach her good ending.
Same. It bugs me that people think larian only existed when making BG3. When DoS2 released on steam that game hit overwhelmingly positive in no time and I bought it day one with no idea what it was because the reviews were so good. Larian will be fine because they stick to what they're great at and they've been around a long time.
Hasbro is probably gambling that it’s the IP that made the money, and not Larian being magic in a bottle as a developer
This is probably true, but how can executives be so stupid? Every review I read praised Larian specifically and how the made a huge game with no microtransactions and tons of little loving touches. You have to be willfully ignorant to think it was the IP and not the developer and their work that people were responding to.
I think it’s probably more a situation where they are not a good fit for each other anymore. The D&D license has value and Hasbro rightly wants to capitalize on that. Larian is a hot commodity right now and they don’t need to borrow the credibility that comes with a big license like D&D. There’s also a timing issue. BG4 is unnecessary when BG3 will continue to sell for years to come. Larian will put out at least a couple more games before BG4 makes sense.
Larian is in a position where they can make whatever game they want and it will sell like hotcakes. Why the hell would they want to pay enormous royalties again when they can bring the writing in house? Sure, Hasbro could reduce their fee, but they can’t reduce it to the point where it’s worthwhile for both them and Larian.
If I'm running Larian, there’s no way I’m making another D&D game. The lore is great, but the rule set sucks. There are better systems in the tabletop space and there’s no reason to even be limited to that after you’ve already made the decision to not make D&D. Wizards isn’t exactly a paragon of reliability and stability either so there’s risk there. Not to mention, it was Larian who helped pull Hasbro’s asses out of the fire. They were facing massive backlash from their core customers until a kick ass movie and BG3 made everyone forget about it.
In short, Larian is riding high and Hasbro is not. There’s a lot more money for Larian doing something else and probably good money for Hasbro licensing to another developer.
I think it's more that executives think the average consumer is stupid and cares too much about IP branding. And I feel they are not completelly wrong. Though I think the OGL fiasco showed the D&D fanbase might be smarter than that ...hopefully.
I hope paizo will jump in and Larian will make a pathfinder game next (it's the better system anyway)
This would be very feels good the whole way round.
Hasbro is probably gambling that it’s the IP that made the money
Laughs in Divinity: Original Sin 2
Can't wait for the EA live service BG4
Such is life, but I am saddened by this news.
Basically Blizzard's story.
How can we take our beloved cash cows and completely destroy them…
It's like poetry; it rhymes.
I know this will never happen by my friends and I talk about Larian doing something along the lines of Knights of the Old Republic. That would be absolutely amazing
That would be the dream
Unpopular opinion probably, but creators should be allowed to stop creating more stories inside a particular world. It's like the issue we had with TV shows just getting the chewing gum treatment. Some worlds should have an end. Though maybe there can be spin-offs in this case, stories unrelated to the current cast in any way.
maybe there can be spin-offs in this case
They haven't said they intend to stop making D&D games. And every D&D crpg in the last 20-odd years (since Torment, I think) has been set in the Forgotten Realms. So it seems highly likely that future games will be loosely related to BG, just without that specific title.
I would love to see them bring back some of the weird old settings, like Dark Sun, Spelljammer, or even Dragonlance. But I'm not holding my breath.
Imho the DnD settings kind of held the game back anyway, the combat in Divinity 2 was a lot more fun since they didnt have to constrain themselves to the super basic DnD item system.
I dunno, I like BG3 a lot more than DOS2. I like actually being able to move and not feel like I wasted my turn doing so, and I feel like I get a lot less "fuck! I didn't want to go there!" situations eating up all my actions in BG3. Having distinct action / bonus action resources, where the latter can be converted into extra movement, is a good system IMO. Now if only they allowed you to use your action as a bonus action if you wanted…
Arguably, they could just make movement a separate kind of action in DOS as well.
There is one skill in DOS2 that grants a free movement action every turn. I use it for my backstabbing rogue, and it rocks!
I hope they will make Divinity 3 next!
I would like to see a Games Workshop collaboration. GW sucks with their mini stuff, but their tabletop rules would make an excellent successor to BG3.
Which editon is it based on? I'm assuming not 3.0 or 3.5 since you called the item system basic. I'm waiting for a good sale before I get BG3
It's based on 5th edition
I would have done the same. Hasbro is poison to anyone that works with them and they would fire everyone at Larian for a penny.
Even if everything went well with Hasbro, Larian is big enough now that they dont need to tempt fate twice.
I like how they just came and dropped one of the best games of the year then immediate quit the series.
I understand the reasons why but when phrased that way it sounds pretty funny
I don't think there's anything wrong with quitting on a high note. Not everything needs to be milked until people are sick of it.
They'll probably work on another divinity game, but I'd love them trying out a game based on pathfinder.
I think Pathfinder is as bad of a match for Larian as DnD mechanically speaking. Compare the sheer battlefield joy and chaos of DoS to the austere strictness in BG3. And Pathfinder is in the same vein. Better I think it would be if Larian picks up a setting fitting their humour and shenanigans. Heard good things about Discworld.
Discworld is amazing but not really a great setting for RPGs. The world is just too zany and hodge-podge. Everything I know about fantasy RPG fans tells me that they demand a “serious, rules-based” world.
There was a Discworld point and click adventure game though. The classic roguelike NetHack also has a ton of references to Discworld and a lot of humour and weirdness in general, though that also happens to be one of the things it gets criticized for the most. A Discworld RPG (which is at all faithful to the setting) would basically be NetHack on steroids.
I guess people just have different preferences. To me, the chaos of DoS turned rather monotone. You could get rich by betting that every combat encounter would end with half the map on fire. It was a real issue that Larian fixed in bg3 thankfully.
And have you payed pathfinder wrath of the righteous? In my opinion, the combat experience is better than DoS 2 and bg3. I will say that I enjoyed the freedom of movement in DoS 2 though, it made positioning a core part of the combat.
Discworld might be absolutely genius if done well. And of all the dev studios I believe Larian would be the best pick. Maybe throw in some co-op with Obsidian and I'm sold!
I liked playing DOS2 a lot more than Baldur's Gate 3 so I hope we get a DOS3 at some point. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I cannot stand spell slots. They're not a fun or interesting game mechanic to me.
This could have been us but Hasbro playin'
have fun trying to make your own video game for the 20th time you bunch of losers (directed at Hasbro)
Hasbro is gonna sell to some heartless VC and D&D will be dead as we know it as they try to bleed every last dollar from whoever stays. Sad times ahead. Capitalism strikes again destroying everything we love.
Have you heard of D&D Beyond? It's already a subscription service, I'm not sure D&D is in the best hands as it is.
Dnd beyond as it is now is still very usable without a subscription. But yeah, this will probably change with the next edition.
It is really annoying. Dnd beyond is such a great product, but it will very likely be ruined by the business model soon.
Unfathomably based
Will they also stop releasing patches?
He has said they will continue releasing patches and also some new cutscenes for endings. Just no new content.
They probably already put out more patches than the devs of every other game released around the same time combined.
The time is ripe for an original property, but with a 8 be year development cycle who knows