Baldur's Gate 3 studio wanted to make 2 RPGs at once, but its devs "got swallowed by the ambitions of the one we want to release first"

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Making 2 games at once is pretty much as hard as it sounds

Baldur's Gate 3
(Image credit: Larian)

Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian is supposed to be working on two new RPGs at once, but it seems that's easier said than done.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Larian CEO and Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke explained that developing two RPGs at the same time is proving a challenge for the studio. "We had some people who were dedicated to the other one, and they just got swallowed by the ambitions of the one that we want to release first. So we will try and do it concurrently, but we have to figure out how to leave people alone."

For a studio as ambitious as Larian that makes games as sprawling as Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2, perhaps that steep learning curve isn't too surprising. Vincke notes that "we always say we do [want to rein in our ambitions], but then we start thinking, and the machine is meant to make large games. We were made for making large, ambitious RPGs and to try new stuff."

"One of the core problems - it's not really a problem - but one of the core problems to do what you're suggesting is that we actually know what we want from our gameplay systems, how to evolve them, how to do new things…and they're all big."

Vincke is still keeping quiet about what either one of those two RPGs is, but we do know that neither one is Baldur's Gate 4. The studio did begin prototyping ideas for a sequel, but "they didn't excite us. Instead, D&D owner Hasbro is looking around for new partners, with the hope that a new Baldur's Gate game doesn't take two decades to come out. It'll be interesting to see how that timeline shapes up with Larian's own schedule, but something tells me we'll probably be seeing both of those new RPGs before a new Baldur's Gate.

One of the most emotional Baldur's Gate 3 moments was totally unscripted and "done in one take" because the director "wanted to make sure this lightning was captured."

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.