D&D Movie/TV There’s a Baldur’s Gate TV Show Coming!

​

According to Deadline, there’s a TV show based on Baldur’s Gate 3 coming from US TV studio HBO and the co-creator of The Last of Us—another TV show based on a popular video game.

Craig Mazin will “create, write, executive produce and showrun” the TV adaptation. Other executive producers include Hasbro's Gabriel Marano, plus Jacqueline Lesko and Cecil O'Connor.

Chris Perkins—who used to work at WotC—will be acting as a consultant for the show.

Larian Studios, which made the bestselling video game, is not involved with the TV show. When Larian CEO Swen Vincke was asked if any of Larian’s writers were contributing, he answered “Not to my knowledge. But Craig did reach out to ask if he could come over to the studio to speak with us. From the conversation we had, I think he truely is a big fan which gives me hope.”

The show will be a sequel to the video game, rather than a retelling of it (as was done with The Last of Us).

Mazin said “After putting nearly 1000 hours into the incredible world of Baldur’s Gate 3, it is a dream come true to be able to continue the story that Larian and Wizards of The Coast created. I am a devoted fan of D&D and the brilliant way that Swen Vincke and his gifted team adapted it. I can’t wait to help bring Baldur’s Gate and all of its incredible characters to life with as much respect and love as we can, and I’m deeply grateful to Gabe Marano and his team at Hasbro for entrusting me with this incredibly important property.”

The show will feature both characters from Baldur’s Gate 3 and new characters.

Separately, Netflix is still producing Shawn Levy’s Forgotten Realms based TV show.

 

[Artamo]

yes, that was the complaint

I guess I’m really confused about that complaint. The game was so expansive and the story was geared to the video game medium. But the greater setting is built to tell many different stories. Why not tell new stories in a way that benefits from the film/tv medium?

 

[Parmandur]

I guess I’m really confused about that complaint. The game was so expansive and the story was geared to the video game medium. But the greater setting is built to tell many different stories. Why not tell new stories in a way that benefits from the film/tv medium?

I mean, people are saying they are skeptical it will work.

 

[mamba]

I guess I’m really confused about that complaint. The game was so expansive and the story was geared to the video game medium. But the greater setting is built to tell many different stories. Why not tell new stories in a way that benefits from the film/tv medium?

It wasn’t my complaint so I can only speculate. To me it sounded like ‘you could have made The Lord of the Rings, instead you chose to tell the story of the hobbits after they returned to the Shire’… why choose Baldur’s Gate if you do not tell the most popular / well known story set in it

 

[Artamo]

It wasn’t my complaint so I can only speculate. To me it sounded like ‘you could have made The Lord of the Rings, instead you chose to tell the story of the hobbits after they returned to the Shire’… why choose Baldur’s Gate if you do not tell the most popular / well known story set in it

And I guess my point is that almost all of the Baldur’s Gate games have been iterations on the story of the Bhaalspawn, and now it added in the Absolute and the True Souls as well. The show can use that as the basis for new stories.

 

[bedir than]

why choose Baldur’s Gate if you do not tell the most popular / well known story set in it

Because the game has 20 million+ main characters and over 70,000 endings. Telling the game's story means disappointing 99% of those who never experienced the story you did.

 

[SteveC]

It’s a sequel, not an adaptation of BG3 though.

That's my point. I don't want to really harp on this, since I really want to encourage the show rather than yuck on it, but the audience for this show is going to be much larger than just people who've already played the game. So it will be new to all of them.

And for me, I'd love to see how they would adapt the game and what parts they'd change. Adapting the actual game means I know the basic plot will be really interesting. Maybe this one will be too, but I don't know. I think the issue is that it's an unknown, rather than something I know will be good if they keep the story. And the storylines for the BG3 characters get largely resolved over the course of the game.

I get that people are excited, but I will take known good writing and plotting over the possibility of something being good. And that's just my opinion, of course, all y'all are welcome to disagree, and I'll still invite you over for a watch party.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's my point. I don't want to really harp on this, since I really want to encourage the show rather than yuck on it, but the audience for this show is going to be much larger than just people who've already played the game. So it will be new to all of them.

And for me, I'd love to see how they would adapt the game and what parts they'd change. Adapting the actual game means I know the basic plot will be really interesting. Maybe this one will be too, but I don't know. I think the issue is that it's an unknown, rather than something I know will be good if they keep the story. And the storylines for the BG3 characters get largely resolved over the course of the game.

I get that people are excited, but I will take known good writing and plotting over the possibility of something being good. And that's just my opinion, of course, all y'all are welcome to disagree, and I'll still invite you over for a watch party.

Karlach and Laezel had very big cliffhanger type endings.

That and the obvious "good" endings are probably the obvious ones they'll go with.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Because the game has 20 million+ main characters and over 70,000 endings. Telling the game's story means disappointing 99% of those who never experienced the story you did.

So does setting after the game, though.

They both have the same issue - you have to pick a "canon".

Also you're massively overselling how different people's experiences are of the main plot beats of the game (which is all a TV series would likely cover even if they did go over the original game's plot). BG3 is more linear than people suggest, and there really aren't that many "likely" ways the major confrontations go down.

 

[Morrus]

That's my point. I don't want to really harp on this, since I really want to encourage the show rather than yuck on it, but the audience for this show is going to be much larger than just people who've already played the game.

I don't know how true that is. It depends on the show. Game of Thrones had 40M viewers, while The Last of Us had about 20M. Other HBO shows have less. In comparison, BG3 has sold around 20M copies. So the audiences seem fairly similar in size. I guess it just depends how well the show does.

 

[Marandahir]

Given that my PS5 struggles with it, I don’t think something between PS4 or PS5 has any chance of running it.

What's the reason it struggles with it?

I've seen analysis that day otherwise, based on PC comparisons.

The Switch 2 runs Cyberpunk 2077 beautifully.

I'm still amazed at the things the Big N have done to make games that struggle on more powerful hardware run with more stability on their weaker stuff. But again, I'm not saying that I think it'll come out on NS2 necessarily, just that if this show is a sequel to BG3, I may not be able to watch it if I don't have the chance to play BG3 first (and I'm not going to buy a PS5 or XBSX or gaming PC just to playing the game).

I've also heard people compare the NS2 to the Xbox Series S, which the game CAN be played on, even if it's going to struggle compared to the Series X.

Also, just saw that the game technically is playable on macOS, so I may need to see what I can do about setting up my 2024 macBook Pro to try playing it there – assuming it doesn't complete overwork the laptop.

So does setting after the game, though.

They both have the same issue - you have to pick a "canon".

I am reminded of the Star Ocean 2 anime adaptation, where they took a third option and gave us a weird blend of different branching story routes.

I've also seen a few series try to adapt visual novels' branching story routes by going like 1-2-3-4a-5a-6a-4b-5b-6b-4c-5c-6c or what not. Usually in such a case they'd let the viewers know which choices A/B/C represent so that you can skip to the branched path you want to go. Though this style of adaptation works better with a single branch point than multiple sub-branches.