D&D General No More Baldur's Gate From Larion: Team Is 'Elated'

Bad news for Baldur's Gate fans--It seems that Larion is out of the Baldur's Gate business. CEO Swen Vicke has announced that Baldur's Gate 3 is not getting any expansions, DLC, or a sequel. Patches and fixes will still continue, however, including cross-platform mod support.

"Because of all the success the obvious thing would have been to do a DLC, so we started on one. We started even thinking about BG4. But we hadn’t really had closure on BG3 yet and just to jump forward on something new felt wrong. We had also spent a whole bunch of time converting the system into a video game and we wanted to do new things. There are a lot of constraints on making D&D, and 5th Edition is not an easy system to put into a video game. We had all these ideas of new combat we wanted to try out and they were not compatible."

-Swen Vicke​

Vicke confirmed this at a talk at the Game Developers Conference, and said that Larion Studios wanted to make its own new content rather than license IP from another company.

He also clarified that a Baldur's Gate 4 was still possible, but that if it happened it would not be made by Larion. Larion is already working on its next big release.

According to IGN, Larion has started work on some BG3 DLC, but it was cancelled.

"You could see the team was doing it because everyone felt like we had to do it, but it wasn’t really coming from the heart, and we’re very much a studio from the heart. It’s what gotten us into misery and it’s also been the reasons for our success."

-Swen Vicke​

According to Vicke, when the BG3 team found out that they would not be making more Baldur's Gate content, they were 'elated'.

“I thought they were going to be angry at me because I just couldn’t muster the energy. I saw so many elated faces, which I didn’t expect, and I could tell they shared the same feelings, so we were all aligned with one another. And I’ve had so many developers come to me after and say, ‘Thank god.'"

-Swen Vicke​

​

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah it's a big part of it.

Makes me laugh about people saying new is better. The risk for 5.5 is change regardless of how good it is.

Eg was there a big grass roots movement for a new edition?

That's the risk.

I think 5e 2024 will do ok, because of the anniversary and the playtest feedback process.

The changes seem modest. But this is because of the feedback. It seems players werent ready for daring changes yet.

 

[Cergorach]

A DM mode unfortunately goes way beyond what a level creation kit could do.

Remember what they did with Neverwinter Nights? NWNX gave you the ability to make a NWN mmo/persistent server. No one imagined that one, until some one actually made it.

...especially as GW-based games often flop (c.f. Frontier's recent Age of Sigmar game).

Isn't this just a case of Frontier being Frontier? The made Elite Dangerous, but the expansion was a complete disaster. Many of the studios GW licenses it's IP to are mediocre at best. As a counter argument, the Total War: Warhammer series has been a great success. The 40k: Dawn of War series was great (but very different), until they released DoW3, which flopped and pretty much killed the series.

It's difficult to be great, it's also difficult to stay great.

======================================

As for 'grimdark sucks', Games Workshop specializes in grimdark and it's now bigger then ever, not just in other media, but their core business: miniatures, sell more then ever. D&D is imho so big as it's basically generic fantasy with many options, high fantasy in FR, horror in RL, weirdness in SJ and PS, etc. And then you can always make your own worlds, what many of us did back when we had oodles of time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I love that they are doing what they feel enthusiasm for and not just painting by the numbers. I hope they'll always be able to do so.
Sure I'd love a BG3 DLC or BG4 for them, but if the skill and enthusiasm they showed for BG3 is going to be funneled into a new game, the new game is likely going to be interesting.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not just Hasbro/WotC - literally everyone who has an IP smaller than Star Wars has this problem - even Marvel has this problem outside of Spider-Man (the one Marvel IP that is marketable enough that you can get huge studios and publishers on it). Even with Star Wars some studios/publishers aren't keen to get involved.

Games Workshop has this problem - once a studio gets successful and skilled enough, it's just smarter to make your own IP, especially as GW-based games often flop (c.f. Frontier's recent Age of Sigmar game).

But you asked a question - who would make a new D&D game, a BG4?

And I'm struggling to think of any studio or studio/publisher combo who is small enough that they'd benefit, but big enough that they could actually do it. I think if WotC were willing to invest in a studio they might be able to make it happen. Owlcat, for example, with a significant investment, could probably make a BG4 - but I don't think WotC would do that.

But yeah this is why WotC are struggling so hard to find AAA studios to do D&D games. It's easy enough to find indie and AA ones who would benefit from the licence and where 10% of gross revenue or the like isn't going to hurt them anywhere near as much as "D&D" helps them, but most of them can't afford to develop a full-scale CRPG, or aren't interested in doing so, or have no experience in that approach.

Yeah even AAA us starting to look unsustainable hence loot boxes, microtransactions etc.

BG3 is the exception not the rule.

People were complaining games hit $70 used but they were essentially immune to inflation. Relative to developments costs they are.

In 90s we were paying $75'100 used per game on the Megadrive. One hit $250 nzd which was around $125 30 years ago.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As for 'grimdark sucks', Games Workshop specializes in grimdark and it's now bigger then ever

As I noted earlier, GW has veered pretty hard away from pushing the grimdark elements of their settings (which did used to be a major thing) and towards a sort of "dark fantasy" vibe.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle was only arguably grimdark, and each edition was harder to grimdark from about 4th edition onwards (before that it was getting more grimdark, but they hit some kind of inflection point).

(The RPG was more grimdark, but the modern one is not.)

Age of Sigmar is not grimdark, but sort of dark heroic fantasy. You just don't have the level of death and horror WHFB often did.

Warhammer 40K 2nd edition created grimdark (Space Marine - "In the Grim Darkness Of The 41st Century There Is Only War")

Warhammer 40K 10th edition is more like "Dark Space Fantasy" than its own grimdark - humanity and the empire are no longer in a death spiral, for example - thing are improving - there is hope.

You still see full-grimdark 40K stuff and it's fine - Rogue Trader the videogame is certainly grimdark in setting, albeit the characters are very much NOT edgelords (um except the Drukhari and he kind of has to be lol). But it's notable how much lighter 40K is now than, in say, 2000.

Isn't this just a case of Frontier being Frontier?

Maybe? But that supports my point. Most GW-based videogames are not very successful and not well-reviewed, and part of it is because most of the companies who take the licence are not super-successful or reliable companies. It's surprising and cool when they are good- for example, just looking at 40K - Rogue Trader, Boltgun, Darktide (eventually), and Mechanicus are cool - but balance those with stuff like every single Space Hulk adaption, both Inquisitor games, Necromunda (how do you screw that up?!), Hired Gun (the other Necromunda game), Dawn of War III, Dakka Squadron, Battle Sister and so on and so on.

 

[Cergorach]

Warhammer 40K 2nd edition created grimdark (Space Marine - "In the Grim Darkness Of The 41st Century There Is Only War")

That is kind of hilarious, as I remember that era being one of the brightest in miniatures ever! The White Dwarf photo spreads of battles between Orks and Blood Angels still hurt my eyes...

 

[Henadic Theologian]

An interesting comment from Swen:

View attachment 352888

Oh boy. Somehow, I don't think WotC is going to understand their importance or treat them with respect in the longer run. And the fact that he's being so clear that WotC owns them helps make clear why Larian probably out of working with WotC or on BG.

As for the next game, Swen has been somewhat inconsistent, but if we look only at more recent thing he's said, rather than including stuff from before BG3 came out, he does seem to be suggesting it will be a new IP and will "dwarf BG3".

I noticed this tweet as well and its left me wondering if WotC could have one of its own studios do a DLC for BG3?

And I'm wondering did WotC buy Larians rights for BG3 out? Because while WotC owns the IP rights which Larian licienced out from WotC, BG3 the game itself was owned by Larian Studios. I do know BG3 characters have appeared in other games like Magic Arena the MtG video game and Magic The Gathering Online and I think Idle Champions so I knew WotC had rights to use the characters, but that is not the same with owning the actual video game BG3. There is clearly more to what is going on here then we know.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I noticed this tweet as well and its left me wondering if WotC could have one of its own studios do a DLC for BG3?

I don't think so.

Larian have a custom engine, and WotC have messed up their relationship to Larian, so there's no reason for Larian to sell them rights to use that engine, and even if they did, hiring out their team to skill up and train WotC's team on how to create for that engine would be pretty expensive for WotC. But I don't think Larian want to have anything to do with WotC, as of right now, so why would they do that?

So there's essentially no possibility. WotC own the characters - they don't own the code.

 

[Zardnaar]

I noticed this tweet as well and its left me wondering if WotC could have one of its own studios do a DLC for BG3?

And I'm wondering did WotC buy Larians rights for BG3 out? Because while WotC owns the IP rights which Larian licienced out from WotC, BG3 the game itself was owned by Larian Studios. I do know BG3 characters have appeared in other games like Magic Arena the MtG video game and Magic The Gathering Online and I think Idle Champions so I knew WotC had rights to use the characters, but that is not the same with owning the actual video game BG3. There is clearly more to what is going on here then we know.

They would have to license the engine from Larian and probably rights to the game.

WotC own the characters etc but Larian presumably owns the game engine, code etc.

So WotC couldn't do DLC. Even if they legally could they wouldn't have the same team, familiarity, competence to do so.

 

[BovineofWar]

I'm not as upset by this as I should be... I love BG3, but it didn't really feel like a sequel to BG1 or 2. While I'd love an old school expansion pack, I'd be happy to see a new Neverwinter or Waterdeep or Luscan set game and not try to tie things to the Bhaalspawn saga for marketing reasons.

Archetype is busy making Exodus (non-D&D), so I'd doubt WotC has the bandwidth to do a sequel in-house. Not sure if DOS3 is in the cards for Larian either, rumour was they were working on a tactical RPG Divinity game instead of DOS until BG3 started up.