Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke addressed the question of new expansions or DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3. Depending on where you stand, you might be happy or not so happy about it.
On the record, Vincke says that they haven’t started making any expansions, but reading between the lines, it sounds like Larian isn’t even interested.
In an interview with PCGamer, Vincke was asked about the Level 12 cap that they put into Baldur’s Gate 3. This isn’t an arbitrary choice; Baldur’s Gate very much part of the Dungeons & Dragons universe. As a result, Larian followed the rules of that world to the letter. In Dungeons & Dragons, you can reach as high as level 20 at maximum.
Vincke’s response was that it would be difficult to make a game with characters that go beyond level 20, because this is the point where Dungeons & Dragons characters start gaining godlike abilities.
Some of those abilities that would be difficult to impossible to implement in video game form, include astral projection, foresight AKA looking into the future, and wish, AKA, any wish.
Vincke concludes:
“[Level 12-20] adventures require a different way of doing things, in terms of antagonists you’re going to have to deal with, which require a lot of development to do them properly. Which would make this much more than an expansion in terms of development effort. A lot of D&D adventures are sub-level 12 for precisely that reason. So it sounds like neat, easy expansion material until you start thinking about it and it’s not as easy as one would imagine.”
But even if we were talking more content without any more level ups, that’s unlikely too. Vincke was the same person from Larian who explained in interviews that the studio wants to go back to making smaller games after this one, and that they also want to jump back into their own franchise, Divinity, in the future.
When you add to all this the fact that they aren’t actually done yet making Baldur’s Gate 3, with no release date set for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions, and you have a studio that just isn’t interested in making more of the game. The whole brouhaha over its assumed PlayStation exclusivity, which has now shifted towards more Xbox Series S discourse, has probably left a bad taste in the studio’s mouths.
Perhaps it’s for the best as well, that Larian moves on. After all, they would need a lot of time to make a Baldur’s Gate 4.
