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

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.

 

[wicked cool]

they released DOS2 in 2017 and BG3 in 2023, so 2022 was deep in the BG3 development, a year dominated by investment into their new game. That year they posted a $220k loss, in 2023 they posted a $260M profit (pre-tax).

Saying they were on the ropes in 2022 due to the heavy investment into their new their upcoming title is simply wrong

Game world observer magazine in 2022- verge of bankruptcy. They had 2 choices scale back or go all in . They went all in

 

[mamba]

Game world observer magazine in 2022- verge of bankruptcy. They had 2 choices scale back or go all in . They went all in

Link? If you are on the verge of bankruptcy, where does the money come from to go all in?

Also, they basically broke even (200k loss…), not really what is generally considered the ‘verge of bankruptcy’

EDIT: the one I found is Larian’s thorny path to Baldur’s Gate 3: from underdogs with Intel 486s to global company that survived against all odds | Game World Observer
which puts the brink of bankruptcy bit before 2013, which you conveniently ignore…

“Larian was on the brink of bankruptcy at least 10 times between 1997 and 2013.”

“Original Sin 2 was a turning point for Larian, as it started opening new offices across the globe and expanding its headcount from roughly 40 people to a team of 140 (as of 2017). Perhaps for the first time in its history, the company had sufficient resources and financial stability to take a new leap.”

“During his GDC 2022 talk, Vincke noted that the company has now expanded to over 400 people, although he never thought his new project would require such a large team.”

“There was a moment where we started understanding what we needed to do to make this game. We thought we understood. Then we actually really understood. And so we had two choices: we could scale it down, or we could scale ourselves up. And so we chose to scale ourselves up.

Swen Vincke”

Reads very differently from what you present…

 

[wicked cool]

Larian grew 10 times since Original Sin, although Swen Vincke never thought studio would need 400 people | Game World Observer

Larian Studios was on the brink of bankruptcy when it was making Divinity: Original Sin. The team has grown almost 10 times since then, although it still faces a lot of challenges on its way to complete Baldur’s Gate 3.

gameworldobserver.com

Right there-scale up or down

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Larian grew 10 times since Original Sin, although Swen Vincke never thought studio would need 400 people | Game World Observer

Larian Studios was on the brink of bankruptcy when it was making Divinity: Original Sin. The team has grown almost 10 times since then, although it still faces a lot of challenges on its way to complete Baldur’s Gate 3.

gameworldobserver.com

Right there-scale up or down

Did you read that article? It says Larian was on the brink of bankruptcy while they were developing Divinity: Original Sin. But D:OS was released in 2014 and was a major success, averting the bankruptcy and funding Larian's huge expansion. There's no sign of any particular money trouble for Larian since then.

If they hadn't made BG3 they would have made Original Sin 3 instead, which would most likely also have been a success given how talented the devs at Larian are.

 

[Parmandur]

Because there are continuously great games coming out that surprise and delight. Many by studios owned by publishers. As a general rule I put little stock in doomsaying. There’s going to be a Baldurs gate 4. That’s great.

Nintendo continues to publish excellent and delightful games, all while not doing mass layoffs and giving employees raises.

Licensed games are a dicey proposition, though, they have become more and more rare and even more rarely good: BG3 and some of the Star Wars games are some of the few good examples in the past decade where the publiaher doesn't own the IP. Hasbro would be better served by building their own studios, which they have begun doing, than by tossing the dice with 3rd parties. The latter can get you BG3, but more likely will result in Sword Coast Legends.

 

[mamba]

Larian grew 10 times since Original Sin, although Swen Vincke never thought studio would need 400 people | Game World Observer

Larian Studios was on the brink of bankruptcy when it was making Divinity: Original Sin. The team has grown almost 10 times since then, although it still faces a lot of challenges on its way to complete Baldur’s Gate 3.

gameworldobserver.com

Right there-scale up or down

yeah, found it in the meantime, see edit to my previous post, you are completely misrepresenting the article.

Verge of bankruptcy was before 2013, the ‘scale up or down’ is Swen saying they underestimated the amount of people BG3 would take, so they could either scale the company up to deliver the ambitious game he envisioned or scale the game down a bit to be able to deliver it with their current head count. He chose the former. An option that would not exist if Larian had been on the brink of bankruptcy then, whereas the huge success of DOS2 enabled them to…

 

[Parmandur]

yeah, found it in the meantime, see edit to my previous post, you are completely misrepresenting the article.

Verge of bankruptcy was before 2013, the ‘scale up or down’ is Swen saying they underestimated the amount of people BG3 would take, so they could either scale the company up to deliver the ambitious game he envisioned or scale the game down a bit to be able to deliver it with their current head count. He chose the former. An option that would not exist if Larian had been on the brink of bankruptcy then…

Though it was the choice that could have blown up in their faces, if hypothetically it didn't take off.

 

[wicked cool]

They had a loss in 2022. Delayed Bg3 to be safe and went all in. MSN has an article backing up my point by Ted litchfield 8 months ago.

It’s right there
They were not a triple a studio prior to Bg3. In some ways Bg3 was a gamble. It was a unbelievable one but if they had blown it and delivered a subpar game who knows

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd add inXile to this list. Solid track record of CRPGs with its Bard's Tale reboot, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and Wasteland 2 and 3 (especially Wasteland 3). Like Obsidian, owned by Microsoft now which has its advantages and disadvantages. Clockwork Revolution, while it's venturing out of the typical CRPG space, is looking like one of the most promising upcoming titles. Maybe a return to the traditional CRPG space after that with a BG4 would be something they'd be interested in?

Yeah so that's actually an interesting suggestion. inXile don't have the same high-profile record of CRPGs as Larian/Obsidian/Owlcat but they are on essentially the same Indie-AA-AAA arc, with Clockwork Revolution clearly being an AAA game (albeit a smaller one I'm guessing, from the trailers - I suspect it's more of a 15-20 hour experience than a some 60+ hour epic - nothing wrong with that, of course).

So yeah I think they might also be in consideration for anyone looking to get an RPG made. But sadly WotC still seem to think in-house is the way to go.

That actually isn’t true so maybe you should do some homework

Larian made money in 2022 but reported a loss.

Making a loss during game development is totally normal, especially if your new product is more expensive to produce than your previous one.

The only way to avoid it is for your previous games to continue selling so well that you don't despite all the money you're pouring into the upcoming product. The idea though is to have a "war chest" big enough that it doesn't matter. And Larian did.

This is normal game development, but you're seeming to either not understand or misrepresent the situation, not that they were "on the ropes". Also, 2022 is 4 years AFTER they pitched to WotC and won the pitch. So your have things happening completely out-of-order - the idea that they pitched because they were "on the ropes" is obviously untrue!

Did they pitch because they wanted to use BG3 to become an AAA? Probably. Sure, why not? They already were hiring AAA numbers of developers before they won the pitch, so they'd have to have done a different game if not, but given how successful DOS2 was, DOS3 would likely have done even better - just not as well as BG3 did. So they'd still have become an AAA, but probably a smaller one.

You are correct that wotc only got about 12% but that was 90 million with o money so that’s probably a big reason why Sven wanted out

Oh definitely agree, I'm sure it influenced things. I think WotC could have finessed it if they'd kept Mearls and his team, but the combination of firing the very people Swen liked working with and who gave Larian this opportunity and taking such a large revenue percentage (which they continued to get after Mearls etc. were fired) pushed Swen over the edge into making the same decision most game devs eventually make - that they're done with using IPs they don't own.

Bioware made the same decision with Mass Effect and Dragon Age, both were intentionally developed so they didn't need to licence IPs (and could do things with them that licence holders might be wary about - though in the end EA stepped in to prevent some stuff they wanted to do with ME1/2, primarily gay romances, before relenting with ME3 - EA didn't do the same with DA for reasons I forget - David Gaider explained it once I think).

It took 3 pitches for wotc to get fully on board.

Yes. No-one is disputing that. But you're making out it like he "begged" for another chance out of desperation, and that's just not true (even if Swen likes to make a drama out of everything). What happened is well-established.

1) Larian asks (doesn't really "pitch" in the truest sense but you're calling it one so fine) if they can do BG3. Gets told "No" outright like everyone else who asked.

2) WotC (Mearls) sees DOS2's pre-release trailer and so on, and WotC calls Larian and tells them to do a pitch, but gives them a very short timeline. Larian does the pitch and WotC likes it but doesn't say "Yes", but rather "You have to meet X requirements and provide a full design document by Y date".

3) Larian meets the requirements and provides the design doc by Y date, does a more in-depth pitch to WotC, gets the "Yes" they needed.

This is all in the Wikipedia article I linked, with sources.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I wonder if they'll try to go with Larian's style of gameplay or do something different. Either way it's gonna be rough for them, either you change things and people will complain it's too different, or keep the same then you'll be compared to BG3 and whatever other project Larian releases in the meantime.