“Baldur’s Gate 3” will not be getting any downloadable content material or a sequel — at the very least not from Larian Studios.
Larian Studios, the corporate behind “Baldur’s Gate 3” — final yr’s largest sport — introduced lately that it doesn’t plan to make any extra content material for the sport or a sequel.
Larian Studios has produced all the “Baldur’s Gate” video video games, that are set on this planet of Dungeons & Dragons. Larian’s first launch was in 1998.
The information comes as a shock given the big success of “Baldur’s Gate 3” in 2023. The sport swept the The Sport Awards and has introduced in at the very least $650 million to date. Gamers additionally spent an insane period of time taking part in the sport — collectively greater than 8,000 years on the character customization display alone in its first 4 months after launch.
The video games, nevertheless, adhere to D&D lore, and so all of its mental property is owned by video games writer Wizards of the Coast, which Hasbro owns.
Larian CEO Swen Vincke instructed IGN that all the characters created by Larian now “belong to Wizards now.”
“I hope that they are going to honor the legacy and get actually good folks on them, however so far as we’re involved, the chapter is closed. There’s closure for us,” Vincke instructed IGN.
Vincke mentioned that the corporate initially supposed to work on creating extra downloadable content material for “Baldur’s Gate 3” as a result of it appeared just like the “apparent factor to do” given the sport’s success. After spending a while on extra content material and even having an early dialogue about Baldur’s Gate 4, the studio realized that one thing felt off, Vincke instructed IGN.
“You might see the staff was doing it as a result of everyone felt like we needed to do it, nevertheless it wasn’t actually coming from the center, and we’re very a lot a studio all about being from the center,” Vincke mentioned.
Workers members have been “elated” when Vincke introduced in December that the studio was shifting on from “Baldur’s Gate” to work on different tasks, he mentioned.
Creating giant video video games like “Baldur’s Gate 3” is a big dedication for a studio. “Baldur’s Gate 3” spent six years in growth, coordinating with 240 completely different voice actors, earlier than it noticed the sunshine of day.
Santa Monica Studios, which is behind the favored “God of Warfare” collection, additionally voiced comparable considerations about that type of dedication when it introduced that it would not be making extra direct sequels in 2021.
The studio launched the primary “God of Warfare” in 2018. It was additionally a large success, equally sweeping The Sport Awards, promoting greater than 23 million copies, and bringing in additional than $500 million. Santa Monica shortly started engaged on “God of Warfare: Ragnarok,” which got here out in 2022 and bought some 15 million items. The studio most lately launched free downloadable content material for the sport in December 2023.
Sport director Cory Barlog instructed Gamespot in 2021 that one of many causes they determined to cease making extra content material after “Ragnarok” is the huge period of time the video games take to develop.
“The primary sport took 5 years,” Barlog instructed Gamespot. “The second sport, I do not know the way lengthy it’ll take, however I am simply going to throw out that it’ll take near an identical time to do that. And then you definately assume, ‘Wow, a 3rd one…’ we’re speaking a span of shut to fifteen years of a single story.”
Whereas Larian will not be creating any new content material for the sport, Vincke instructed IGN that there’s nonetheless some content material within the works that can be launched throughout future updates, like new ending cinematics.
Larian Studios didn’t instantly return a request for remark from Enterprise Insider.
