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No More Baldur's Gate From Larion: Team Is 'Elated'
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9295757" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Weirdly, despite loving BG3 and being incredibly impressed by the wild talent levels of the team who work at Larian, I'm not particularly excited, because I don't think Swen has the "taste level" to greenlight something actually great, based on his prior track record. I think he's too attracted to sophomoric edgelord stuff, and grimdark settings, with overwrought and counterintuitive mechanics. Even BG3 started that way at the beginning of Early Access, luckily the massive negative reaction in EA convinced Larian to completely dial back on both.</p><p></p><p>All that said, and my strong skepticism re: Swen's taste level aside, I don't think this is at all surprising for a few reasons:</p><p></p><p>1) DLC for games like BG3 needs to be planned out before the game launches, and work needs to start on it either then or shortly after launch, certainly if you're going to take less than 2-3 years to make it.</p><p></p><p>2) Swen stated immediately after BG3 release that Larian were working on multiple smaller games*, no big games, and seemed surprised by questions re: DLC/expansions for BG3, and sort of tried to waffle them off. Since then Swen has been dodging the question on this for some time, and clearly uncomfortable when asked asked about it.</p><p></p><p>3) DLC always makes less money than the main game. I mean, this might seem like a trite truism, but I don't think people necessarily realize how much less - absolute insane best case you might sell 50% as many copies of the DLC as the main game (usually only true for a niche indie with hardcore fans), but it's usually more like 10% (excluding packaged-in DLC). The way they stay profitable is that you can put a much smaller team on them, and reuse a ton of tools and assets you already created, and further, their existence helps extend the long-term sales of the base game, and to increase the value proposition it and especially later DLC-included packages present to future buyers.</p><p></p><p>4) Larian have never really done DLC in a serious way before. They've sold small add-ons and so on, but not really any expansion packs for recent games.</p><p></p><p>Further, I rather doubt any of Larian's upcoming games were planned to be D&D engine/setting games for a couple of reasons:</p><p></p><p>A) WotC would be incredibly desperate to say so, and would have convinced Larian to let them say Larian are working on another D&D game. Instead they seem to putting out "we hope to work with Larian again in future" vibes.</p><p></p><p>B) Swen doesn't seem to like D&D much, nor think much of the FR. This is my personal impression (though I have seen others share it), from multiple pre-release interviews re: BG3. Now this doesn't seem to be true of the Larian team as a whole, but Swen has expressed opinions which amount to both Rivellon being a much better setting than the FR, and DOS2 having much better mechanics than D&D**.</p><p></p><p>I agree with those who suggest WotC firing basically every single person who helped get BG3 made probably put the final nail in the coffin of that relationship, and whilst I am very sure WotC are trying absolutely everything to convince Larian to make more WotC-based games, I don't think they really have the cash or IPs to make that happen.</p><p></p><p>It's a pity because I think it's quite likely Larian themselves will disappoint people with whatever they come out with next, and I think that's near-guaranteed if they return to Rivellon and/or make a non-CRPG. Given Swen has indicated he wants to retire relatively soon, I think Larian probably only have 1-2 big games in them as an independent company, because the very second he leaves Larian is going to get sold to Sony or MS (not WotC, they won't have the money).</p><p></p><p></p><p>* = This conflicts with him now saying they are working on a big, boundary-pushing game, so I suspect after they made literally hundreds of millions of dollars, plans changed.</p><p></p><p>** = To be clear, I believe Swen is extremely wrong about both, but that's a separate discussion maybe.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9295757, member: 18"] Weirdly, despite loving BG3 and being incredibly impressed by the wild talent levels of the team who work at Larian, I'm not particularly excited, because I don't think Swen has the "taste level" to greenlight something actually great, based on his prior track record. I think he's too attracted to sophomoric edgelord stuff, and grimdark settings, with overwrought and counterintuitive mechanics. Even BG3 started that way at the beginning of Early Access, luckily the massive negative reaction in EA convinced Larian to completely dial back on both. All that said, and my strong skepticism re: Swen's taste level aside, I don't think this is at all surprising for a few reasons: 1) DLC for games like BG3 needs to be planned out before the game launches, and work needs to start on it either then or shortly after launch, certainly if you're going to take less than 2-3 years to make it. 2) Swen stated immediately after BG3 release that Larian were working on multiple smaller games*, no big games, and seemed surprised by questions re: DLC/expansions for BG3, and sort of tried to waffle them off. Since then Swen has been dodging the question on this for some time, and clearly uncomfortable when asked asked about it. 3) DLC always makes less money than the main game. I mean, this might seem like a trite truism, but I don't think people necessarily realize how much less - absolute insane best case you might sell 50% as many copies of the DLC as the main game (usually only true for a niche indie with hardcore fans), but it's usually more like 10% (excluding packaged-in DLC). The way they stay profitable is that you can put a much smaller team on them, and reuse a ton of tools and assets you already created, and further, their existence helps extend the long-term sales of the base game, and to increase the value proposition it and especially later DLC-included packages present to future buyers. 4) Larian have never really done DLC in a serious way before. They've sold small add-ons and so on, but not really any expansion packs for recent games. Further, I rather doubt any of Larian's upcoming games were planned to be D&D engine/setting games for a couple of reasons: A) WotC would be incredibly desperate to say so, and would have convinced Larian to let them say Larian are working on another D&D game. Instead they seem to putting out "we hope to work with Larian again in future" vibes. B) Swen doesn't seem to like D&D much, nor think much of the FR. This is my personal impression (though I have seen others share it), from multiple pre-release interviews re: BG3. Now this doesn't seem to be true of the Larian team as a whole, but Swen has expressed opinions which amount to both Rivellon being a much better setting than the FR, and DOS2 having much better mechanics than D&D**. I agree with those who suggest WotC firing basically every single person who helped get BG3 made probably put the final nail in the coffin of that relationship, and whilst I am very sure WotC are trying absolutely everything to convince Larian to make more WotC-based games, I don't think they really have the cash or IPs to make that happen. It's a pity because I think it's quite likely Larian themselves will disappoint people with whatever they come out with next, and I think that's near-guaranteed if they return to Rivellon and/or make a non-CRPG. Given Swen has indicated he wants to retire relatively soon, I think Larian probably only have 1-2 big games in them as an independent company, because the very second he leaves Larian is going to get sold to Sony or MS (not WotC, they won't have the money). * = This conflicts with him now saying they are working on a big, boundary-pushing game, so I suspect after they made literally hundreds of millions of dollars, plans changed. ** = To be clear, I believe Swen is extremely wrong about both, but that's a separate discussion maybe. [/QUOTE]
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