Larian's new Divinity game might mean a pivot back to classic RPGs, and I can't wait to see the Baldur's Gate 3 devs break their typecast role as turn-based royalty

I didn't have 'watch a man burst into globules of demonic gunge' on my Game Awards 2025 predictions list, but Larian's new Divinity game ended up fulfilling one of my pre-show prophecies after all. It looks like Geoff Keighley's mystery desert statue wasn't a Half-Life 3 hint – it was something even more impressive (to me, at least).

Lauded by Larian CEO Sven Vincke as the "biggest, most ambitious RPG yet" from the Baldur's Gate 3 studio, I was obsessed with Divinity before I even knew what it was. This coming from someone who is ashamed to admit she hasn't even played Divinity: Original Sin 2 yet. After setting a new gold standard for CRPGs and turn-based games in the wake of Baldur's Gate 3, and having invested more than a decade away from third-person RPGs, I can't wait to see how Larian applies its new learnings to the mainline stream of its Divinity series – even if I don't expect to play it for another decade.

Pagan-tic

Jolly villagers in modest medieval garb are celebrating in the town center, swigging mugs of ale, singing, altogether having a jolly old time. Their merriment is interspersed with shots of an emaciated man sitting in the dark, wrists bound. It's not until the camera pans away that we realize he's trussed up in one of three towering wickerman effigies, a pyre waiting to be lit. To the rapturous delight of the baying crowd, a cloaked man tosses a torch into one of the straw structures. A little girl tugs her mother's skirts, whining for a closer look.

The first two minutes of the new Divinity trailer shown at The Game Awards 2025 are an emotional rollercoaster. A gory one, at that; as the imprisoned sacrifice starts to burn, red-hot chains melting flesh, ripping it from bone, eyeballs liquefying in their sockets, something bubbles forth from his destroyed body. Blackened buboes burst, spitting their contents upon the ground. They sizzle for a moment before taking root in the earth itself. Jubilant celebrations turn to horror as I find myself, not unlike the once-gleeful peasants, watching it with a smile.

I'm not overly familiar with the Divinity games, truth be told, but I did not expect something this hardcore from Larian Studios. Least of all did I expect to do a little digging and learn that Divinity was always markedly different from its turn-based prequel spin-off Original Sin in being a third-person RPG rather than an isometric CRPG. That means the new Divinity might be a third-person endeavor after all, and after thinking it through, the unexpected pivot would actually be totally on-brand for Larian.

Divine Divinity and Divinity 2: Eco Draconis, released in 2002 and 2006 respectively, were two of Larian's few forays into third-person RPGs. The studio followed it up with, surprisingly, a real-time tactics game by way of Divinity: Dragon Commander in 2013, and I can't be the only one who's never heard of it.

After the success of Original Sin, it seemed Larian had found its stride in turn-based CRPG games, leaning into the deep strategy and fantasy worldbuilding that would lay the foundations for its momentous work spearheading their very own D&D game: Baldur's Gate 3. Which is why the upcoming Divinity is so fascinating.

Something wicked this way comes

It's rare to see a developer go through an experimental stage early in its lifespan, find a genre and style which best speaks to its skillset, only to potentially be taking a massive gamble in revisiting one of said old experiments. I don't think it's dramatic to state that Larian made a name for itself as the studio to beat when it comes to turn-based fantasy RPGs – but I guess that doesn't mean it doesn't have more tricks up its sleeve.

We might know relatively little about what Divinity will actually look and feel like – again, I'm only speculating that it could be a classic RPG off the back of past Divinity games – let alone what the story itself be. That just leaves plenty of room for Larian to surprise us further. It's no doubt learned many a lesson since the days of Divinity 2, and even Divinity: Original Sin 2. Larian wears its evolutions proudly on its sleeve – that's partly why Baldur's Gate 3, combining isometric turn-based combat with fully-rendered RPG cutscenes, feels so unique and special.

It's a Frankensteinian entity, the sum of its parts speaking to the studio's comprehensive experimentation across a breadth of RPG stylings. With Divinity reportedly "larger than Baldur's Gate 3" – a game that's already confoundingly humongous, with many fans still having never rolled credits even two years on from launch – I can't wait to see which elements the new Larian game will iterate on from its latest success and which it'll leave on the cutting room floor.

One thing's for sure: as we approach 2026, I'm once again all aboard the Larian train. Man, it feels good to be back.

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