We now know that Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios is closing the book on Dungeons & Dragons, with no plans to return for an expansion or sequel. Studio head Swen Vincke knows what's coming next, and it's a step toward a plan he's been concocting for years to make what sounds like the ultimate RPG.
Vincke isn't talking specifics about what Larian's next game is, but he tells GameSpot that he's had the idea since before development began on Baldur's Gate 3: "This was part of a larger plan that I have towards what I call the very big RPG that will dwarf them all."
He says "it's a very long plan" and a "complicated" one, and the full vision won't be realized in the studio's next game. "I think there's some tech that we don't have yet," Vincke says. "I don't know what the specs are gonna be on the next gen, I hope we're gonna get something that's gonna bring us closer."
Whatever this 'very big RPG that will dwarf them all' is, Larian has been building toward it since 2014's Divinity: Original Sin. "Before that, we were just struggling to survive," Vincke says. "So we just went from game to game, and really often fucking up."
But D:OS1 marked the start of a concentrated effort to build the foundations of new capabilities with each of its new games - first, with multiplayer. Then, D:OS2 was an effort to expand Larian's storytelling chops. Baldur's Gate 3 was how the studio figured out how to blend cinematic narrative with emergent gameplay. What's the big pillar of the next game? "You'll see," Vincke teases - a tease that's made all the more maddening by the fact that something even bigger is waiting even further down the line.
But as for the game in the immediate future, Vincke doesn't want development to drag out the way it did on Baldur's Gate 3. "Six years is too long. We didn't want it to be six years." Vincke adds, "I think if we could do something in four years, we'll be happy."
The next game might still follow the Early Access precedent of D:OS2 and Baldur's Gate 3. "I wouldn't be surprised, although plans can change, that we do exactly that," Vincke says. "We just focus on making a large chunk of content, we go into Early Access, we see what the players think, if they agree with us. And then we move on from there and we'll see what it does. But there's a lot of discovery in the creative process, and we're in the pre-production phases, so we don't know yet exactly what we're going to make. We know the general direction."
With the promise of that ultimate project in the air, Vincke says "I have a general sense of what I want to achieve. It'll adapt to circumstances, to technology, [and] to Larian's situation, because I don't know where we're going to be X years from now." After a game as ambitious as Baldur's Gate 3, it's wild to think the best may still be yet to come.
Larian's looking to dominate the rankings of the best RPGs.
