Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interviews

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IGN interviews CEO of Larian Svend. Choice quotes below.

What's the main focus of Larian Studios in Malaysia?

Swen: It's to help with the development cycle. We've organised in a way that when we start working in one studio and then we can pass it to another studio so we don't have to work like madmen 20 hours a day.

We did this for Divinity: Original Sin 2, which we made in two years. For such a large RPG, it's unheard of. This had to do with the fact that we can send the work to Canada. So, I can go to sleep while the team in Canada is working further on the game but when I woke up in the morning, a lot of work is already done.

The game we're making, Baldur's Gate 3, is an insanely big game. It's super complex for us to develop for the players and it's a really complex game to make. Given the size of it, we all need the help we can get to make it"

"The thing I love the most about the Divinity series is its versatility. You can play with other friends and you can play as a single-player or multiplayer. There's a lot to take in from the story, combat, characters and multiple RPG and strategy gameplay to tailor for each player. I'm curious about the period of perfecting the Divinity: Original Sin development.

Swen: We started out with the idea of how large we're going to be but we're always wrong. I mean with Baldur's Gate 3, we've made a lot of iterations but it's always the same mistake and it’s bigger than we expected. It's because we take things to the next level and decide many options like, "Wouldn't that be cool, wouldn't those be cool, yeah?" (laughs).

We try to reward exploration and experimentation for the players. That means we probably put an irrational amount of effort that only a few people will see but we think that would be really cool to see in the game. But the thing is that when the players discover that, it becomes a very big advocate for the game because I never expected that possibility. There's a lot of passion that goes into making this game obviously."

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Larian is making Baldur's Gate 3 now and Baldur's Gate is such a beloved franchise. How are you going to live up with the fans' expectations?

Swen: I don't think we can live up to the expectations. I think that's impossible. Those expectations are soaring through to the roof. What we're doing is we're making our type of Dungeons & Dragons with a lot of love for what came before and with also putting our own stamp on it.

That's literally the only way we could approach it. We don't want to make a clone of Baldur's Gate 2. We want to make Baldur's Gate 3. It's based on the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons so there's a lot of stuff that I think that we're going to add into it. There are also innovations and things you haven't seen before but we'll never know which one the fans are going to like it or not. I hope the fans like it because we put a lot of effort into it."

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Have you asked the previous developers BioWare and Interplay about making Baldur's Gate 3?

Swen: Well, the team who made previous Baldur's Gate games have spread around but we talked to a whole lot of them. We chatted with them about how to do it. We also talked to the people of Wizards of the Coast obviously since they're the owner of Dungeons & Dragons. So we came up with something that I think it's good. We'll see."


"I'm fascinated by how you're able to translate tabletop gameplay to video games. Tabletop games are quite complex already. Will Baldur's Gate 3 has the gameplay mechanics similar to Divinity: Original Sin?

Swen: No, it's not the same as Divinity: Original Sin. It's very different at its core. For me, the biggest difference is probably the class-based gameplay. The similarity, however, is that both Divinity: Original Sin and Baldur's Gate 3 will try to give you a lot of player agency. You decide to do something. The Dungeon Master thinks and says, "Sure, roll D20". They just check and we'll see if it goes or not. That's the fun of it.

We're trying to do the same but in a video game, the game itself becomes the Dungeon Master. So we have to figure out upfront on what you're going to be doing, for example, in terms of stupidity and have the game world reacts to you. That's what we want to try. I think we have cool stuff in there."