Baldur's Gate 3

[~Jack~]

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Created in close collaboration with the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards of the Coast, Baldur’s Gate III is based off current D&D mechanics and spells and is the official new chapter in the legendary series.

Baldur’s Gate III will push the boundaries of the RPG genre and offer a rich narrative with unparalleled player freedom, high-stakes decisions, unique companion characters and memorable combat. It is Larian Studios’ biggest production ever and will be playable together with friends or as a single-player adventure.

The teaser trailer shows a return of a malevolent presence to Baldur’s Gate, intent on devouring it from the inside out, corrupting everything that remains in the Forgotten Realms. Alone you may resist, but together you can overcome. Gather your party.

“Baldur’s Gate means so much to so many people. It’s a great responsibility but I think we’re ready for it,” said Swen Vincke, Creative Director at Larian Studios. “We’re all about creating reactive, systemic worlds that respect player agency and having a chance to apply our team’s skillset in a universe as rich as Dungeons & Dragons is a lot of fun. We’re working very closely with Wizards to bring an unprecedented level of immersion to the realm of Faerun and I can’t wait to show the world what our team cooked up.”

“Partnering with Larian, a studio that combines a remarkable history of critically-acclaimed titles with a genuine passion for one of the most iconic locations in Dungeons & Dragons, has been a terrific experience,” said Chris Cocks, President of Wizards of the Coast. “We believe fans of the Baldur’s Gate saga – and even those new to the series – will be thrilled to step into this epic story.”

Larian Studios plans to work closely with the global community to bring the coveted series to life, with more news to follow over the course of the year.

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Set 100 years after the events of the original games, Baldur's Gate 3 will utilize Dungeons and Dragon's 5th Edition Rules. But that doesn't mean that Baldur's Gate 3 will be an isometric RPG like BioWare's old Infinity Engine games. Rather, it will have its own identity, Larian founder Swen Vincke tells USG. "We're going to have some things that you haven't seen yet in CRPGs, which I would love to talk about, but I'm going to hold it," Vincke says.

One thing Vincke will talk about is player choice. When I ask him what element of Baldur's Gate he thinks is most important to capture, he says, "'What do you do?' It's that question and option to do whatever you want. If we can get that agency and freedom of systems and make your own adventure in that way, then we've accomplished what we set out to do."

Vincke also confirms that Baldur's Gate 3 will emphasize environmental interaction of some sort, though it's unclear what form it will ultimately take. When I ask Vincke if Baldur's Gate 2 will have interactions similar to that of Divinity: Original Sin 2, where you could set up massive combos by, say, arcing lightning across water, he says, "And more."

Despite that, Larian very much has its own vision for the series. It will have callbacks of course ("Expect iconic things to be present," Vincke says), and it will be steeped in D&D lore, but setting it 100 years after the events of the original seems to be Larian's way of decoupling it from BioWare's work. I ask if Larian is making use of any work from Black Hound, which had been under development at Black Isle Studios before it closed in the early 2000s, and he says no.

"We started clean. I didn't look at Black Hound. We just started with what we knew with Baldur's Gate, and went with what we thought was a very cool and surprising idea. We had the core of the idea from one of the books and asked if we could do it and they said yeah," Vincke says.

As for the story Larian has in mind, it's clear that Mind flayers will have a big part to play in Baldur's Gate 3. Asked why Larian is focusing on the Cthulu-like brain eaters, Vincke says dryly, "They're Mindflayers, they're cool. They also have an element of Spelljammer to them [a 2nd edition campaign setting], which is a personal weakness."

Vincke goes on. "They have a very interesting history. They used to have a big empire before they were destroyed. Now they're in hiding, they're in the Underdark. All of the Mindflayers are after the grand design: how to restore their empire. So you have a very nice storyline there; very easy to understand background for creatures who have a good motivation to do things. But then when you start fooling around with it, there's a lot of things you can start doing with them."

On the subject of the very brief teaser trailer, he says, "We're not saying where the [scene you see] happens. This trailer is not the opening."

Larian will once again be using its own engine for the project, but with some significant upgrades, which are intended to be reflected in the teaser trailer. Vincke says Larian started building the Baldur's Gate 3 pipeline back in 2017, when Divinity: Original Sin 2 was still under development, and is now reaping the benefits.

In the shorter term, Larian has a lot of work still to do on Baldur's Gate 3. When I ask if it might come out in 2019, Vincke only laughs and says no. It sounds like we won't be getting the final game until late 2020, or even early 2021, though this is just speculation on my part. But for now, the best eager fans are going to get is the new Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus tabletop, which is described as a prequel to Baldur's Gate 3.

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The story itself will not be a direct continuation of events from the original game. “The story of the previous Baldur’s Gate was closed – it was actually closed, in a certain sense, in a tapletop campaign called Murder At Baldur’s Gate, so that’s where it really came to its closure,” says Vincke.

What he can tell me is that “we are in the city of Baldur’s Gate, we’re in Forgotten Realms and stuff has happened in the world since [D&D’s] 3.5 edition. This game directly follows a new campaign called Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus, we worked very closely with them on that, and so our story continues right after that.” This makes talking about the game even more challenging, as Ascent Into Avernus isn’t out until September and Vincke doesn’t want to spoil how that story unfolds.

It does sound like we’ll be able to look at that campaign and get a clue or two about Baldur’s Gate 3’s new ideas. Vinke paints a picture of Larian and Wizards working closely to support each other’s vision, to the point where “they came up with something in [the Avernus] campaign that we thought was so cool we dropped what we were doing on one bit and changed it to theirs, because it was too cool.” Considering that Avernus is described as ‘Mad Max in hell’ and introduces rideable war machines into the mix, I know which idea I hope it is. (I’d also settle for D&D’s new ‘Devil Deals’, which will let you barter with infernal creatures for just about anything, should you be willing to risk the duplicitous small print.)

Of course, it’s not essential you play the tabletop campaign to prep for BG3. Vincke says “If you have played it, when you play Baldur’s Gate 3 – literally in the opening area you’ll be like ’oh my god, that’s linked to this and that’s linked to that’. You’ll understand what’s happening.” And if you haven’t? “You’ll still understand, but you won’t get the history of it.”

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