I was trying to imagine some situations where Larian's next RPG might still feel larger than life, but without being explicitly tied to D&D. I think what I find appealing here in BG3 is that it's both self-contained and also part of a broader system that still exists outside of the game. You can learn how to play D&D by playing this game, or get pretty close to it. I can picture situations where Larian might take on say a Pathfinder, but I think it'd be an odd fit, just given how they've mentioned wanting to move on and own their IP. I don't know, maybe they could buy White Wolf somehow, or use some other scheme to keep with the D20 vibes via other systems. DC20 though, I could see something there, just because it's similar enough to translate but with a lot less baggage in train.
Another thought I keep having is - what's it going to look like when some other studio steps in to do a BG4?
I feel like it's an inevitability now, that someone will want to build on this clearly pretty successful foundation, but I think that would require some other form of continuity or else fans of BG3 may just balk at the effort. What would be required so that players don't balk, but instead feel positively disposed towards any such project? I think absent Larian's involvement the only way to pull that off would be if somehow Pitstop was still behind the camera maybe?
Since so much of what makes this game memorable comes from the performances, it does seem like it might be possible to keep it going that way. I'm sure it'd be a super tall order, but it doesn't seem impossible. Provided the same people were involved in the nuts and bolts direction or in creating the core art assets for that. Like then the overall presentation would at least have some degree of overlap in that case, if the same people were on board. A similar sense of humor or artistic take, something to hold onto that isn't just a complete rework. I could picture that.
Visual callbacks or a similar overall look wouldn't feel quite so copy cat if the same peeps were at the helm. Presumably we'd get something that harmonizes more readily that way. It seems like a very long shot, but one thing BG3 did pretty well was to elevate the performances and make sure that peeps really felt something there. The gameplay would probably have to feel somewhat derivative in order to feel like we're still playing a proper sequel along these same lines, but that's not the worst problem to have. Set in the realms isn't enough though, if the gameplay doesn't grab, so building on what works. It's not too hard to picture what that might look like. Problem is that if it seems all extra corpo with the Wizards calling the shots or just a cash grab in the marketing, you'd lose everything that Larian brought to the table by still making the game 'feel' indy, even though they're hella massive now hehe. Not sure there, seems like a dilemma of a different kind than whatever Larian does with their next game. Still worth ruminating on probably though, if they want a BG4 to capture any of the same fire that we got from BG3.
