Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General what do you think is more likely ?

What do you think is more likely a Definitive Edition with cut content restored and or fixed down the line when the have time to do so or some kind of Expansion/DLC to expand on the existing game like more stuff fans want or Larian just moving on to make another game/project ?

I'm not sure why they cut the content that they did really in the first place.
maybe it was just content they couldn't finish in time for release so they cut it to save the time but knew it may cause problems later so having to patch the game like they have been doing ?

They already said that the "cut" content is cut because it isn't fitting with what they intended in their Art.

If you happen to like it, too bad (for now).

But they also say they listen to the feedback, and they've been listening to us pretty well so far.

I personally want expansion, not bringing "cut" content back.

To my knowledge, Larian have never made an expansion for their games. I expect BG3 to get the same treatment as DOS2: a definitive edition in a year or so, during which time other parts of the company begin development on one or more new games.

My gut reaction is they will stay true to their history and not do a DLC, rather have a Definitive Edition. However I do think they have some wiggle room with the concept of adventure packs. Entire new campaigns that work but you need the base game to play.

Larian has never had such a massive IP in their stewardship before, either. The size and success of BG3 dwarfs every other game they've made, so a DLC is a lot more likely under these circumstances. The financial incentive for a DoS II DLC may not have made sense, whereas it's probably a foregone conclusion that BG3 is getting more content. I'm sure Wizards of the Coast will have a say in the matter as well, since every other BG game has had DLC. I'm optimistic.

I’d love something that raises the level cap to at least 14. We reach level cap way too fast.

DLC with a new big map to explore would’ve been perfect, but definitive edition is more likely.

A box set of Patches.

I think if it were a foregone conclusion we would have heard something by now. And I doubt that the fact that the other BGs had expansion packs matters that much, because those prequels were so far in the past and done by an entirely different studio.

I actually don't have a lot of hope for an expansion pack; I think they're going to be combating bugs and issues in the current release for a long time.

They will drop it.

Its obvious that Larian neither likes D&D and Baldur's Gate as they feel too constrained by it. They only made BG3 because of the hype it would generate.

And with every fanboy singing praises and drawing rule 34 pictures and gaming magazines too afraid to downgrade their scores after they could finally play it for real and see how overhyped it was there is nothing for Larian to gain by further touching it.
Especially as every change Larian introduced later in the dev cycle turned out to be very bad and was a horrible mistake. So chances are the more they touch BG3 the worse it will get.

Padding out the cursory ending would be very welcome, but for most of the cut content, yeah, I can see why they cut it.

I think this is what is going to happen based on where Larian is right now.

1) Definitive Edition of BG3. Polishing Act3, and more fully implementing story beats and even character interactions, fixing bugs and exploits, and re-balancing Act 3 combat/versus player power creep. Some cut content will probably be re-implemented and some characters will get more expanded endings. This will take 6-9 months.
2) Deal with internal burn out/exhaustion - It's pretty clear that Larian has been in crunch mode for the last year and it's been ongoing since the game released. They have clearly been working hard to address player concerns and keep polishing act 3 - they hopefully are doing staggered vacations for people to take some time off either already or soon. These people produced more content using less people and money than Bethesda and have clearly been going non-stop for a long time. They deserve a break.
3) Renegotiate the licensing agreement with Hasbro - this may take a bit, but Larian has the leverage here. We could get a lot of great stuff from this, including additional modding capability, separate content modules, and an entirely new game set somewhere else - Faerun is a big place - we don't always have to be in Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale.

I'd be a happy with a big patch, that actually fixes stuff instead of breaking it...

Apart from that, the game feels very much like this is still early access, especially act 3 is nowhere near where it could be. Because of this I think, a Definitve Edition with a bigger act 3 overhaul is likely.

I don't think we will get a full DLC, the story is very much selfcontained. Maybe something small, a quest they wanted to do, but didn't have the time for... More likely is that they start work on their next project as soon as BG3 is in a stable state. Based on the huge success I'd say, that is not the last DnD game from Larian.

Thank you for all the feedback for this topic.

I kinda hoped Larian would do something with gortash's placement in the story in act 3 since he seems to be a lesser threat to the story vs orin.
he is not much of a threat vs what orin brings to the story and more so in a fight.
ketheric thorm has a far greater presents as a villian in act 2 and a better boss fight.

if i was to guess gortash should've been the boss for upper city if it was in the game and orin would be the lower city boss but i dunno really.

Yep, I don't mind if they added ending slides ala obsidian rpgs (it wasn't a norm to begin with), or perhaps some after the fact mentions of our previous actions just like the Act 2 finale.

I agree with previous poster that Larian has never made an expansion, but I just keep hoping since it's a DnD game, I hope they approach it like Pathfinder and/or Solasta.

The problem is a universal one with D&D 5e and is centered around "power creep" or more specifically - you just killed a massive Netherbrain with the ability to kill entire worlds, so where do you go from here?

Past level 12 the power levels are just insane, especially with spells in the 7-9th level range being pretty Godlike to the point that any limitation on the characters can be overcome with magic.

It's not impossible mind you, just really difficult if you are being honest. Bg2 did it with severe limitations on spells in the 7-9 range.

Also, the story of Baldur's Gate feels like it is finally wrapped up. The Main divine antagonists are basically toast at this point, they were barley exarchs and every God of every power level and alignment is going to want them dead, probably including AO for what they tried to do.

However, I do think there is an opportunity for Larian to build out some smaller, more self-contained adventures for the multiplayer market and to write a story that takes place in an entirely new environment/locale.

Personally, I am hoping to see someone return us to Sigil, the City of Doors (Planescape) - I don't think any studio except for Larian has the writing chops at this point to handle that.

AND, Planescape would allow them to feasibly go past level 12 and still provide significant challenges, since Sigil is full of "entities" whose power levels are on par with being Godlike.

They could do a prequel, where you start at level one. It tells the story of what happened before everybody got sucked up by a mindflayer ship's tractor beam. The story already makes it clear/plausible that protagonists already had some levels under their belts before they were abducted and underwent a level wipe. So an expansion could go from level one to four/five-ish.

The financial argument seems solid to me, with some caveats.

Expansions by definition have a cap on sales numbers. You're selling a cheaper product that comes with a prerequisite, for profits to be good you need the expansion to be made at low cost.

I don't know how cheap BG3's engine is to use, but it can't be all that cheap. With all the animated dialogue, the permutation work, motion-capture, what-have-you, Larian are going to need to sell a lot of expansions or make them quite pricey.

It's also telling that the magic mirror is limited to the player character. It seems like any character who speaks has to have their animation match their model to prevent clipping or other glitches. I don't think that kind of limitation is conducive to a quick turnaround.

While I still don't see an expansion coming out, I don't want to rain on your optimism either. If Wizards of the Coast get a say, things are looking up for an expansion: WotC are nothing if not profit-driven. This time, capitalism is our friend!

We're not going to hear an xpac announcement 2 months after release, regardless of whether or not it's already in the works. I agree that they're going to be squashing bugs for a while, but eventually, a boardroom full of Wizards execs are going to start pointing at sales figures and factoring in precedents (BG 1 & 2), and - assuming it's not already written into the contract - they are going to lobby for more BG3 content. It's purely a financial decision, now that Larian are in bed with Wizards of the Coast. This is why BG's legacy xpacs matter, and it's also why the fact that the story of BG3 is "self contained" really doesn't matter. Larian may technically be able to say no and move on, but if they'd be leaving millions on the table, there's no way they'd do it, it'd be irresponsible to their employees and to the success of their company. I think BG3 is such a massive phenomenon that that's the situation we are in.

I'd gladly pay for a Definitive Edition with a polished act 3, new ending/epilogue and free of bugs.

I'd also gladly buy DLC.
So either way is fine for me.

Same!