Image: Larian Studios
Like it or not, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the last Dungeons & Dragons-related game you’ll get from Larian Studios.
Developer Larian Studios has confirmed that it won’t be releasing expansions and DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3, nor will it develop a full sequel to the game. In fact, the developer is getting out of the Dungeons & Dragons business for good, with new games in the pipeline seemingly based on original IPs. The future of Baldur’s Gate 3 and its characters will now lie in the hands of publisher Wizards of the Coast.
Game director Swen Vincke confirmed the news at a Game Developers Conference (GDC) talk today, which you can watch here.
Baldur’s Gate 4 and Baldur’s Gate 3 expansions/DLC not happening at Larian Studios
Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke gave a GDC talk today, where he dropped some surprising news: Baldur’s Gate 3 is the final piece of Dungeons & Dragons content that the game studio will work on. During the panel, Vincke confirmed that the studio won’t make an expansion for Baldur’s Gate 3 despite its overwhelming success, and won’t make a sequel to the game either.
Instead, Larian Studios is moving onto something new. The Baldur’s Gate IP and its established characters will be left in Wizards of the Coast’s hands, to do with as it pleases in other forms of Dungeons & Dragons media. Vincke has commented in the past that he already has Act 1 for the studio’s next game mapped out, and seems to still be in the process of developing the rest of its story.
In case you’re concerned about the future of Baldur’s Gate 3 itself, however, you can rest easy knowing that Larian isn’t done patching the game. The studio’s director of publishing confirmed that more updates are already being planned for the RPG - though their contents are currently unknown:
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a massive, labyrinthian RPG built for replayability, and Larian has added more features players have asked for post-launch like a character customisation tool and a lengthy epilogue. Mod support is also in the works, so the game’s time in the spotlight isn’t quite done yet.
Last month, Hasbro announced that it had made $90 million off of Baldur’s Gate 3, making it a huge success for the toy company. It now has more Dungeons & Dragons games in the works and will likely look to expand into the RPG space to replicate Larian’s success, but the studio itself is off to greener pastures. In other news, Vincke also showed off an amusing look at the vampire Astarion during early development - back when he was quite adamant about being a simple, not at all bloodsucking tiefling: