Larian learned Divinity: Original Sin's random loot is "frequently confusing" and didn't "save us much time," which is why Baldur's Gate 3 and now Divinity are handcrafted

Divinity is ditching the randomized loot of its predecessors, Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2, in favor of the more handcrafted gear seen in its developer's latest mega RPG Baldur's Gate 3. The biggest sin of all is not guaranteeing good loot, it seems.

Larian Studios took questions from the community in a recent and surprisingly meaty Reddit AMA, mostly focused on its upcoming game Divinity with a couple of answers reserved for the team's massive breakout hit Baldur's Gate 3. One specific fan question wondered whether Divinity would have handcrafted loot (a la Baldur's Gate 3) or randomized and level dependant loot (a la the Original Sin games.)

"The [Baldur's Gate 3] approach of handcrafting every magic item worked well, and it's something we've always wanted to do for [Divinity: Original Sin 2]," head of design Nick Pechenin wrote.

"Something we realized when working on randomized loot for DOS1 and DOS2 is that fully random loot is frequently confusing, so we added more and more rules and premade patterns to make it feel more intentional," he continued, concluding that "in the end randomization did not save us much time."

I've always found that constantly comparing weapons with minimally different stats and spending ages managing cluttered inventory is almost always a hassle in narrative-driven RPGs. Doing all of the above in loot-filled games like Diablo tickles a satisfying itch in my brain, sure, but I'm not convinced it's what people come to Divinity for, so I'm glad Larian seems to agree.

The thing I wanted more of from Baldur's Gate 3 is also something Larian wants to improve on in Divinity: "More interaction between companions"