It’s pretty lucky that we got Baldur’s Gate 3. Because at the crucial moment Larian really failed.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was the role-playing mega-hit of the last few years and probably one of the best RPGs there has ever been. But the fact that we got the game at all is a small miracle. Because when Larian wanted to get the license and thus permission to make the title at all, they almost failed in the task.
There are 3 secret rooms in Baldur’s Gate that very few of you will ever see
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What happened back then? The rights for Baldur’s Gate and the Dungeons & Dragons franchise were owned by Wizards of the Coast. After Larian had already made a deal, it was time to present the planned game in more detail. To do this, it is common practice to present the rights holder with a design document in which the game is presented.
The problem: This document was really, really bad. So bad that Wizards of the Cost told Larian that too. The problem was apparently a lack of time.
Why didn’t Larian have time? According to Swen Vincke, Larian’s boss, this was due to the fact that they were completely busy releasing Divinity: Original Sin 2 in 2017. They were in the final phase of development and had their hands full taking care of this game. The next project, Baldur’s Gate 3, was already in rough planning, but they simply couldn’t commit to it.
Vincke said (via gamesradar):
That was really bad. We had to write something or we would have lost this deal. But we didn’t have the capacity to do that because we were busy taking care of Divinity: Original Sin 2. Wizards [of the Coast] wrote us back and let us know, in company jargon, that our paper “really sucked.”
And we said: We know, but we’re releasing a game right now – please don’t ask us to do that right now. Grants us an extension of time. Luckily they understood that and we were given another chance.
Why Baldur’s Gate? If Larian was so busy with their own game, it’s worth asking why they were so eager to make Baldur’s Gate 3 at all. For Swen Vincke, this was basically the only logical step to further develop Larian. Because he knew that if Larian was going to continue to grow with talent, it needed an outside IP that people would love to work on.
It felt like we were under a glass dome that we couldn’t break through unless we had AAA production values and the budget and marketing and all those AAA things.
It had to be Ultima, it had to be Fallout, or it had to be Baldur’s Gate. There wasn’t much choice.
We were probably all pretty lucky that it ultimately turned out exactly the way it did – because that meant we had one of the best RPGs of all time, which is still being improved well over a year after its release and is probably one introduced an entire generation of gamers to RPGs.
A fan was given a very clear answer as to whether the predecessors of Baldur’s Gate 3 are still worth it today.