Fraser Brown
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Larian is following up Baldur’s Gate 3 with not one but two new RPGs. And, unsurprisingly, they’ll likely be big ‘uns. That’s just Larian’s style, but it does come with some problems, especially when they’re following a game as massive and elaborate as Baldur’s Gate 3.
One of the challenges inherent in following up a massive RPG with more beefy RPGs is finding original ideas to fill them with. Chatting with writing director Adam Smith for Baldur’s Gate 3’s first anniversary (check out the full interview on Larian’s past, present and future), he tells me that this is an issue Larian’s currently bumping up against.
“One of the biggest problems we have now is that whenever we’re talking about things, we say we did that in BG3,” says Smith. “And it turns out, we did a lot of things in BG3 when we think back to it.” It’s the classic ‘Simpsons did it’ problem.
This isn’t a new concern for Larian, though. The first Divinity: Original Sin was also pretty meaty, and Divinity: Original Sin 2 was huge—so this issue reared its head even when the studio was working on Baldur’s Gate 3.
“It was the same during development,” says Smith. “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.”
Inevitably, developers contend with comparisons to their previous games no matter how much new stuff is squeezed inside them. Baldur’s Gate 3 is an exceptional game based on its own merits, but it still evokes memories of the Original Sin games and, of course, its classic Infinity Engine predecessors. This isn’t a bad thing. But for Larian, there’s a strong desire to try new things and experiment.
It’ll likely be some time before we start to see what shape these experiments take, though. Larian’s keeping quiet in regards to both of its next RPGs, leaving us lots of room to hope and speculate.