Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios is hard at work on its next title, but the hit RPG is getting in the way of fresh ideas.
If you can believe it, it’s already been a year since Baldur’s Gate 3 came out of early access. I know, I know, the passage of time is a daily existential crisis, but let’s put that to the side for the minute. Larian is still doing some work on the beloved RPG, with sign-ups for its upcoming seventh patch closed beta having gone live last month. That patch is due out in September, but of course, the studio is also working on a couple of new “very ambitious RPGs” with a Larian lead summit taking place early last month too. Except, as it turns out, coming up with new ideas is hard, especially when you put so many good ones in your previous game.
To commemorate the game’s first anniversary, PC Gamer interviewed writing director Adam Smith about the game, and how coming up with ideas for the studios’ next game is proving to be difficult. “One of the biggest problems we have now is that whenever we’re talking about things, we say we did that in BG3,” Smith said. “And it turns out, we did a lot of things in BG3 when we think back to it.” This isn’t actually a new problem for Larian, as apparently it also faced a similar issue with Baldur’s Gate 3 and looking back to the Divinity: Original Sin games.
“It was the same during development. Have they already seen this pattern? Have they already used these verbs in this order? Have they already had this emotional arc? So you’re constantly trying to make sure that they’re getting a new experience, and you’re not just repeating yourself, and you’re not just giving them content for the sake of content.”
Of course, Baldur’s Gate 3 turned out pretty great, winning a whole bunch of awards, so I’m sure Larian will do just fine. You’ll just have to wait a while for it.