"We're in a post Baldur's Gate 3 world": Indie publisher says Larian proved players "are not stupid" and want "50 million copies" of intense CRPGs

Ever since Baldur's Gate 3 released two eternities ago, in 2023, the video game industry has been at cold war with itself over how much the intensely successful D&D 5e adaptation has changed the landscape, if at all. But if you ask New Blood Interactive co-founder Dave Oshry, the answer is simple: everything's different after Baldur's Gate 3.

"We're in, like, a post-Baldur's Gate 3 world," Oshry says on a new episode of the Quad Damage Podcast. Developer Larian has "proven that people are not stupid, they don't want dumbed down RPGs, and that publishers can "sell 50 million copies of a deep-ass CRPG that will take you fucking months to beat."

"I think that means that we can do this," Oshry concludes, "and Microsoft should fund a Pillars [of Eternity] 3."

Another installment of the 2015, so-called Baldur's Gate spiritual successor Pillars of Eternity would be a perfect litmus test for how much influence Larian has had on gaming; series director Josh Sawyer said in 2024 that Pillars of Eternity 2, which released in 2018, was met with poor sales that were "very demoralizing."

It's possible that, now, Baldur's Gate 3 – which shares both its tabletop inspiration and the hefty, chocolate cake denseness of its story with Pillars – has made players hungry for more demanding CRPGs. Creeping out from Larian's shadow, a new Pillars game could perform much better financially in 2025 than it did nearly a decade ago.

But, though Oshry tells Quad Damage that "Josh really wants to do Pillars 3," Sawyer once said in a 2024 Q&A that while "people talked about [Pillars 3] because BG3 was a huge critical hit, a huge commercial hit," he feels that he's "kind of out of touch with that [CRPG] audience." So we'll just have to settle for Baldur's Gate 4 in 30 years.

10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode.