Larian may release this game in about one year, which is still enough time to make significant changes to its design. We know a large amount of development resources are being put into writing, staging, and animating pre-constructed PC stories and scenes, which do not contribute to building a deep CRPG system, and may not appeal to many RPG players. As we have seen over the last seven patches, it is not a priority for Larian to include large amounts of missing mechanics and/or content from the PHB. I feel that the amount of missing content goes beyond "homebrew," though, as a critical amount of mechanics and balance have been completely ignored, and the game is not a "benchmark incarnation" of 5E (or any other edition!). At this pace, it seems likely that an accurate description of the final game will be "Divinity: Sword Coast 1" rather than anything that could honestly be described as D&D. I'm a DOS1 fan (DOS2 was meh) so I will be interested in that product, and I will definitely be playing it. Larian has my money already.
However, even if "Divinity: Sword Coast 1" turns out to be a great game, the high-level design choices made for this game, and the years of work put into it, pose a problem for future D&D games licensed to Larian. Any future games in this franchise will follow from the reputation of this one, which will be well-known for not containing the class, mechanics, or balance of 5E. When the "final" game also is missing huge parts of the PHB, players will no longer be fooled by the D&D brand and the cache of "Baldur's Gate." Even more seriously, without building a faithful, detailed implementation of the 5E systems, future games will either have to be ultra-homebrewed again from scratch, or will be rehashed versions of the watered-down systems from the first one, which will be disappointing to everyone. The rich game system that has been iterated and refined for five major editions is not going to be rivaled by anything Larian puts together on the back burner while they are scripting a fan-service drama series. Whatever oversimplified game systems they end up with will be difficult to adapt WotC content to, since the purpose of the standardized edition is to make new campaigns compatible with the existing mechanics and systems.
When Larian obtained the license from WotC, I was hoping they would build a foundation for developing multiple faithful D&D games over time, not just one. I am worried that this will never be successful due to the consequences of deviating too far from the core 5E game systems.
