Baldur's Gate 3 director says Larian had "all the freedom we needed" to make the D&D RPG but adapting the tabletop format provided its own "limitations"

CEO of Larian Studios and director of Baldur's Gate 3 Swen Vincke claims that Wizards of the Coasts gave the team "all the freedom we needed" to develop a game based on the Dungeons & Dragons IP, but did feel some limitations when it came to adapting the tabletop game system for the video game format.

In a Reddit AMA that includes 11 lead developers from Larian, the team answers numerous questions about the studio's upcoming game Divinity. One of the questions comes from a user curious as to whether the developers were held back by Wizards of the Coast as the owner of the Dungeons & Dragons moniker, and if being Divinity's license owner will allow Larian to do anything differently.

However, Vincke claims that the team were completely free to use the Dungeons & Dragons IP exactly how they saw fit. "We had all the freedom we needed on BG3," Vincke says. While Wizards of the Coast gave the devs the freedom to create the game they wanted to, not everything went smoothly with the adaptation from tabletop to video game.

Comment from r/Games

"The game was based on 5e," Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition rule set, "which is a system that was made for tabletop, not for video games. Most of the limitations came from that," Vincke says. No one from the studio explains what these limitations are, but players in the comments believe they include the restricted level-ups.

With complete freedom over the upcoming game, Divinity, we wonder what Larian is cooking up for us.

Baldur's Gate 3 wins Steam's Labor of Love award following 2 years of updates and community support: "Pretty f***ing good way to start 2026."