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
Another thought I keep having is - what's it going to look like when some other studio steps in to do a BG4?
White Wolf is owned by Paradox and they are on the cusp of releasing Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 through The Chinese Room dev studio. It might actually be good. In any case there is no way they would sell off that IP at this point.
I don't know who Hasbro thinks is going to make Bg4, but clearly they have failed to learn anything from the past, so I am excited to see what trash they fart out in the next few years. I have looked at the games they have licensed so far and *yawn*
But hey, prove me wrong.
Engine is irrelevant. There's nothing unique about Larian's engine that makes the game wholly distinct from any other game that could possibly be made... Heck, BG1/2 didn't use that engine in the first place to create the series.
Other engines can work to provide a game that feels like a BG game. The only thing it will lack is Larian's signature "Surfaces" addiction which was homebrewed into the game in the first place (And is as a result subject to much chagrin).
I mean, we see other CRPG games using their own, non-Larian, engines don't we? Kingmaker/WotR/Rogue Trader, Dragon Age, Pillars of Eternity, Spellforce... With many companies simply moving to the new Unreal Engine anyway.
I respectfully disagree. The Divinity Engine is great fun on it's own. To me it's BG3 that's irrelevant. There was so much damn potential with multiplayer that Larian never really had the time/resources to tap into.
BG3 the game/player base is petering out as the single player crowd finds shinier things to distract them. If Larian had built the engine around multiplayer functionality, and maybe put together some simple modules like an Arena, a procedural dungeon, and a Starting area with shops for players to use as a jumping off point and robust modding tools with an area builder the player base would still be very high. It would have been the next and very upgraded Neverwinter nights.
The crazy thing is with voice AI capability we could even have built out a simple tool to create spoken dialogue with some generic voices.
The Divinity Engine is an open system with a lot of flexibility for how you play, while the Infinity engine - while great at the time and understanding that it is over 20 years old - doesn't hold a candle to this engine and what it can do. if you had released Bg3 with the Infinity Engine do you honestly think it would have been acceptable at all? You'd have a niche group of nostalgia focused people like Kinisthara who would have been into it but overall it would have flopped.
Personally? I would be happy (or at very least content) with basically anything but that.
Not to be excessively mean to Larian, but while I have mild appreciation for their past productions, I would gladly go on with my life without ever having to interact with Rivellon ever again, as far as settings go.
P.S. I'm also hoping they'll stick with turn-based combat, because when it comes to mediocre action combat we already have it IN SPADES from other publishers (and frankly speaking I don't see them competing on even footing with the big dogs like From Software etc in that aspect).
Agreed, about all of it. I honestly am also done with the 'tone' of the DOS stuff as well. Kind of a "whimsical-horror' thing going. No thanks.
