Larian Studios has some bad news for fans who are holding out for Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC or expansions–it won’t be getting any. Even if some fans will be disappointed, CEO Swen Vincke said it was the right thing for the studio, explaining that the team were “elated” when he made the decision to stop working on a planned DLC.
Speaking to IGN at this year’s GDC, Vincke revealed that Larian was at one point working on DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3. “Because of all the success the obvious thing would have been to do a DLC, so we started on one. We started even thinking about BG4,” he said.
When the team started working on the DLC, however, Vincke said it didn’t feel quite right. “You could see the team was doing it because everyone felt like we had to do it, but it wasn’t really coming from the heart,” he explained. “We’re very much a studio from the heart. It’s what gotten us into misery and it’s also been the reasons for our success.”
The turning point came after Vincke took some time off for a Christmas vacation, returning with his mind made up on the question of DLC. “I told the team, ‘You know we’re not going to do it. We’re going to shift around and we’re going to start doing these other things that we talked about, that we planned on doing before we started on BG3,'” he said. “So let’s just have closure on BG3, it’s been great. We’ve done our job. It’s a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. So let’s pass the torch to another studio to pick up this incredible legacy.”
Vincke says most of the team was aligned with this decision, describing “elated faces” among the rest of the team on hearing the news. “It was more routine work than actually being excited. Now we have the excitement back in the room and that’s a big important thing.”
In an interview with GameSpot at GDC, Vincke confirmed that Larian wouldn’t be working on a Baldur’s Gate 4, saying “We want to do big, new things. We don’t want to rehash the thing that we’ve done already.” While that leaves the future of Baldur’s Gate with Wizards of the Coast, who may choose to hand the franchise off to another studio, Larian’s future plans are looking ambitious.
Vincke has spoken on the future of the studio, explaining that Larian is ultimately working towards “the very big RPG that will dwarf them all”–a big call given how massive Baldur’s Gate 3 already is. While the team at Larian is already looking to its future, Baldur’s Gate 3 is still raking in accolades, picking up another Game of the Year title at the Game Developers Choice Awards.
