Now that it’s done with Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian has two more RPGs on the docket. And because this is Larian, they’re likely going to be pretty massive.
Developing two RPGs concurrently sounds like a huge task, which is why I’ve been wondering if Larian planned to reduce their scale when compared to the behemoth that is Baldur’s Gate 3. It turns out that it’s not, CEO Swen Vincke tells me in an interview ahead of BG3’s first anniversary.
“The machine is meant to make large games,” he says. “We were made for making large, ambitious RPGs and to try new stuff.” It’s worth noting, too, that Larian has grown a lot over the last few years. While more developers doesn’t always equate to a faster turnaround or the ability to make more games, more resources certainly help. The developer is now nearly 500-strong, and after the success of BG3 it’s not exactly strapped for cash.
Vincke and Larian already know what they want to do, too. “We actually know what we want from our gameplay systems, how to evolve them, how to do new things … and they’re all big.”
What shape these RPGs will take is still unknown—at least outside Larian. The developer recently met in Barcelona to discuss “lift off” on the first of the two games, however, with Vincke pitching the game’s vision.
While he’s not giving anything away, we shouldn’t count out the possibility of Larian dabbling in a new genre setting, either. It’s traditionally been a fantasy studio, but it’s not tied to the setting. “Yes, of course,” Vincke says when I ask if he’d be interested in leaving fantasy for another genre, like sci-fi. “There’s so many things that I would like to do. Just so [few] things that you can do.”
You can read the full interview on Larian’s past, present and future, where we discuss everything from the studio’s reinvention after its biggest failure to the chances of it working with an existing universe again.