D&D General WotC: 'Of Course We're Going To Do' Baldur's Gate 4

“Baldur’s Gate is an incredible game. And of course, we're going to do a successor."
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In an interview with The Game Business, Wizards of the Coast's president John Hight touched on the company's video games plans for Dungeons & Dragons.

Hight told interviewer Christopher Dring “Baldur’s Gate is an incredible game. And of course, we're going to do a successor."

Larian Studios, which made Baldur's Gate 3, has previously indicated that is not going to be involved in any potential sequels.

However, the previously announced game that game studio Giant Skull is currently working on is not Baldur's Gate 4. Hight says "This is not the successor to [Baldur's Gate 3]. We go to Stig and his team to tell an incredible story and bring D&D to a very broad audience. Ideally, the game will appeal to D&D players because it will help them realise their imagination. But it’s also going to hopefully appeal to people that love playing action games, that love the Jedi games, that love God of War games." Giant Skull's game will be a single-player action-adventure game.

Giant Skull's Stig Asmussen spoke a little about that--as yet untitled--game: "A lot of us have grown up on Dungeons & Dragons. And for me, with a new company, this is something that we’re good at. We're good at working with partners. We're good at capturing the spirit of those worlds. It wasn't something that we could just walk away from. It was actually a pretty easy [decision]... Dungeons & Dragons is the definition of a playground. When we had the meeting in Renton [Washington], my mind opened up to the possibilities of what we could do. There’s still a lot of things that we have to abide by. There’s the spirit of Dungeons & Dragons. There are the worlds, player agency and choice, building a party, actions have consequences… those types of things."

Giant Skull was founded by Stig Asmussen in 2023. Asmussen previously was the game director of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, as well as God of War 3.
 

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Look at the naughty word BioWare got for Hawke, for example.
Man Hawke was the one time, the goddamn one time when "pre-created character" 100% landed for me.

Hawke was boss. Like, I tried to make a better-looking character than default Hawke, and I just couldn't even come close, and it wasn't just the engine, Male Hawke looked amazing. I don't even like beards but goddamn. I've literally modded him into other games since.

And then he always had speech options that ruled, and I was like YESSSS that's right suck it up! Hawke is absolutely owning you in conversation! They let him drop so many sick lines.

(The one exception being I couldn't call out Anders for obviously lying to my face re: what we wanted bat guano for - I've played AD&D guys, I know a fireball spell is!).

I also normally played female characters in RPGs, but Male Hawke was so cool that I just didn't initially. I did eventually play female Hawke, she's also pretty cool. I had an incredible evil run with her.

I really liked that DA2 was kind of short (30-ish hours) and had some good fixed story elements too (not fighting Orsino regardless though, that was lame). Somehow worked to make it very replayable for me.

They did get incredible shizz for it, and for other things (some more or less justified), and then Inquisition was just like an insane overreaction to all that criticism! Inquisition answered every single criticism of DA2 except what Darkspawn looked like by going waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far in the other direction.

Not enough areas, too many resused areas? < Movie trailer guy voice > HOW ABOUT WAY TOO MANY AREAS! SOME OF THEM COMPLETELY POINTLESSSSSS!!! JUST MORE AND MORE AND MORE AREAS! ALSO THEY'RE HUGE!!!

Not enough meaningless sidequests? HOW ABOUT SO MANY YOU WANT TO DIE JUST FINISHING THE FIRST ZOOOOONE! IS THAT COOL!!??!?!

Main character is too specific? HOW ABOUT THE BLANDEST MC DIALOGUE YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE?!!? EASILY THE BLANDEST BIOWARE EVER WROOOOOOTE.

Enemies rappelling down, coming in through 1-way doors and teleporting in (with demons) is annoying? HOW ABOUT ENEMIES JUST STANDING AROUND BASICALLY EVERYWHERRRRRRRRE!!! ALSO WE KEPT THE TELEPORTING IN BUT NO-ONE NOTICED TO COMPLAAAAAAIN!!!

No real crafting? HOW ABOUT ABSOLUTELY METRIC TONS OF TEDIOUS INGREDIENT HARVESTING AND A TRILLION MILLION ITEMS YOU CAN CONSTRUCT AND KIND OF HAVE TO CONSTRUCT?!?!?

I feel I've overstayed my welcome with this bit already, but you get it.

EDIT - Okay one bonus one.

Hawke looks too good, I can't make a character who looks that good? HOW ABOUT WE BRING HAWKE BACK AND MAKE HIM LOOK TOTAL AND UTTER CRAAAAAAAP??????
 

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There is evidence that Larian
-needed wotc
they could not make BG3 without approval, in that sense they did

-a year before Bg3 wasn’t strong financially
200k loss means you are basically breaking even on sales of your old games while at peak development of the new one, that is a pretty good spot to be in for an independent studio

-needed outside investors along with crowd funding to get off the ground
crowd funding with DOS2, outside investment with Tencent, probably around 2018. Neither has anything to do with your claim of ‘brink of bankruptcy in 2022’, that just is not true

Nobody was saying prior to Bg3 that Bg3 will be maybe the greatest rpg of all time.
it didn’t need to be the best RPG ever to be a success. BG3’s success did not miraculously save Larian from near certain bankruptcy the way you claim
 

200k loss means you are basically breaking even on sales of your old games while at peak development of the new one, that is a pretty good spot to be in for an independent studio
Yeah 200k is basically nothing given that they had nearly 400 employees at that point. Seriously that's like what, the to-employer costs of 2-4 employees? That is absolutely basically breaking even. I had assumed that it was at least $5m-$10m for it to be even worth mentioning. Christ.
 

Swen owns 62%, the Tencent investment probably was in 2018. Maybe the Tencent investment helped them with getting Hasbro on board or having the funds to go AAA and basically double the team for BG3, no idea. It is not what saved them from ‘the brink of bankruptcy’ in 2022, that bit never happened
That you don’t know. I said speculating
They lost money in 2022
 


I would be surprised if a Baldies Gate 4 hits the same thing in the bottle like BG3 did.

On name recognition alone AND fond memories of BG3 might even make it a success.But everybody would probably go "Man, it's not as good as BG3" once the honeymoon phase is over.
 

$200K

That's absolutely nothing. I personally know people in the games industry who paid a lot more than that by themselves lol.
That is nothing.

We spend more in salaries in a month where I work, and we're a mid-sized indie. And it's perfectly normal to not be profitable in the years where your previous game has been out for a while and you're on the verge of releasing a new one (and have invested massively into it). It's the normal curve for the industry.
 

$200K

That's absolutely nothing. I personally know people in the games industry who paid a lot more than that by themselves lol.

Stop pretending they were in trouble.
You stop pretending. If you search why did Larian lose money in 2022 you see. The company in the past was in the verge of bankruptcy several times. It’s kind of exhausting

So why dont you explain wth happened and why they went to wotc and why a multinational Chinese firm owns 30% since you seem to have all the answers. Why did it take 3 pitches to convince wotc to let Larian make bg3
 



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