Wow! Larian Studios surprised the gang throughout a Thursday Sport Builders Convention panel dialogue. Founder and CEO Swen Vincke revealed that the studio has little interest in increasing upon its massively widespread Baldur’s Gate 3 RPG. He clarified that followers should not get their hopes up for any DLC, expansions, or a Baldur’s Gate 4.
The revelation was stunning, famous IGN. The studio has been tightlipped about numbers, however Baldur’s Gate 3 gross sales estimates vary from 7.5 million copies bought to over 20 million, relying on who you ask. The low-range ballpark appears unrealistic, contemplating the sport is offered on all main gaming platforms besides the Swap. Moreover, as of final August, it had bought greater than 5.2 million models on Steam alone. The general consensus is a imprecise “approach over 10 million.”
No matter precise counts, few would deny the sport’s recognition. Fewer nonetheless would have thought Larian would abandon the chance to take advantage of extra income from this potential money cow. Its builders did present some post-launch content material, together with a playable epilogue. Many had been assured there was extra to return, particularly a sequel.
Nonetheless, Larian did give us hints this might occur. Throughout Gamescom 2023, Senior Product Supervisor Tom Butler instructed IGN that the studio would proceed with patches in the meanwhile however talked about a vacation and shifting on to one thing else in the identical breath.
“We’ll keep it up patching for some time after which we’re all going to take a vacation after which we’ll work out what we do subsequent,” Butler defined. “However in the intervening time, we genuinely have discussions. We wish to do extra. We do not know what but.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 is already a large sport. The bodily model comes on 4 discs. In my view, it is one of many first titles in an extended whereas that I’d take into account full at launch – apart from some bugs. It totally has sufficient content material to not warrant the continual enlargement many avid gamers anticipate.
Moreover, Larian mentioned that it’s engaged on a cross-platform modding system it hopes to implement earlier than it components methods. As now we have seen with video games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, community-created mods can typically rival a studio’s personal DLC efforts – Fallout: London anybody? So, BG3 will probably have a few years of community-supported materials in its future.
As for what’s subsequent, the studio is greatest recognized for its Divinity RPG franchise. Launched in 2002 with the sport Divine Divinity, its newest entries, Divinity: Unique Sin (2014) and Divinity: Unique Sin II (2017), had been very nicely obtained. Each earned spots on our ongoing “The Finest PC Video games (You Ought to Be Enjoying)” listing, so examine them out if you have not already. Judging by the developer’s launch cadence, we must be about due for one more Divinity sport, however who is aware of?