One of the biggest misconceptions about the video game space is that if a certain title sells well enough or is critically acclaimed enough, the developer HAS to make a new entry in the franchise or turn a one-off title into a series. However, that doesn’t always happen, and plenty of examples exist to prove it. For the team at Larian Studios, they were making their own unique worlds before they dove into Baldur’s Gate 3. It took quite a while to get done and get right, but the result was numerous “Game of the Year” victories within 2023 and 2024, with great sales to boot.
To that end, you’d think that Larian would be up for making another entry in the beloved RPG series. Except they’re not. In fact, they’ve already confirmed they’re moving on to other games and franchises. In a chat with GamesRadar+, narrative director Adam Smith revealed that the team DID try and come up with ideas for a 4th game, but it didn’t excite them or fuel them as much as their award-winning title did when they first made it:
“For us, we didn’t have anything unfinished that we wanted to say, we wanted to move on to other worlds. And we tried, we did start pushing around ideas for Baldur’s Gate 4, and they didn’t excite us, we didn’t have the fire. It feels like it should have been a harder decision than it was, but it wasn’t. We came to the realization, ‘do we have that fire?’ And we didn’t, so it was obvious – we don’t do it.”
One of the other elements that Smith noted was that Larian Studios was so comfortable with who it was and didn’t have corporate overlords bearing down on them that it didn’t force the team to try and come up with something. It didn’t matter that Baldur’s Gate 3 was one of the best games of 2023 and had numerous accolades attached to it. They knew they couldn’t put the passion and energy into a new entry, so they moved on.
The irony is that many developers SHOULD have done what Larian Studios did, but didn’t. Instead, they kept trying to milk various franchises for all they were worth, even though they weren’t doing anything meaningful with it.
The gaming space is supposed to be about creativity above all else, and sometimes that means making something great and then seeing if you can make something new that is just as great.
