Reports of a Baldur's Gate 3 lawsuit are going viral after a Tiktok "satire" claimed the game was being sued for being too good.
The origin of the Baldur's Gate 3 lawsuit claims is TikTok account Gaming with Stazima, which treads a fine line between its creator's self-proclaimed "satire" and out-and-out disinformation. The video 'jokes' that several major developers - including Ubisoft, Activision-Blizzard, and EA - are suing Larian for "defamation of the games industry."
The commitment to the bit is almost impressive. The video pans over a letter that could almost pass for a legal document - assuming you were barely paying attention to it as the rest of the Tiktok plays in the background. It goes on to allege that Larian has raised the bar so high that player's expectations will now be unrealistic, and that the companies bringing the lawsuit are looking to claim $100 billion from the studio.
It should go without saying that this Baldur's Gate 3 lawsuit is not real. Gaming with Stazima has claimed that the video and the letter they wrote as a prop are "satirical." If you're in any further doubt, consider that most major game developers probably wouldn't want to opt into a lawsuit that claims they're incapable of making industry-defining game. Even if they did, proving that player expectations had been irrevocably altered barely a week after Baldur's Gate 3's release would be pretty tricky.
There's no denying, of course, that Baldur's Gate 3 is a great game, and there's been plenty of discussion about how it's raised the bar for RPGs across multiple disciplines. In our Baldur's Gate 3 review in progress, I said that it felt like Larian had accomplished the impossible when it came to the breadth and depth of the game, and after many, many more hours, that's certainly true. That doesn't, however, mean that it's set to meaningfully impact the success of every future game inside and outside its genre.
Baldur's Gate 3 is the game of the moment – don't ruin that moment.
