Given how long it took Larian Studios to craft last year’s critical darling Baldur’s Gate 3, it might be a surprise to learn the studio is crafting not one, but two games to succeed the acclaimed RPG. CEO Sven Vincke is divulging early details about the forthcoming projects, including shifting away from Dungeons and Dragons and developing games specifically for PS5 and Xbox.
Speaking to Eurogamer following his appearance at GDC 2024, Vincke explains that “we have two games that we want to make, and we intended on making [them] after BG3, so we’re just back on that track now. They’re big and ambitious, that’s for sure.” However, at least one of these new PS5 games and new Xbox games won’t be within the same RPG game trappings as Baldur’s Gate 3.
“It’s not D&D. So we’re new in the sense that it is different from the things we’ve done before. [It’s] still familiar enough, but different. I mean, like tone, style, way of doing it, are for us certainly new,” Vincke reveals. The CEO delves into Larian Studios’ design process, and how it factors PS5 and Xbox platforms into crafting its new games.
“The benefit of working for consoles is also that the minimum specs on PC are low [as a result], which is good for your sales in general. So you want to achieve that,” he says. Vincke hopes to incorporate cross-platform functionality, given that Baldur’s Gate 3 crossplay is non-existent: “We would like to be cross-platform on day one. I think [that] is the best for the game, in terms of its commercial potential, but we will certainly mitigate it against the development cost on the development side itself.”
You won’t see either game switch engines, too. Larian will stick with its proprietary technology, the Divinity 4.0 engine. While switching to Unreal Engine 5 could be appealing, Vincke tells Eurogamer there are significant benefits to using its Divinity 4.0 instead. Vincke describes learning other engines as a “roadmap”, but it doesn’t always lead down a path worth following.
With over a decade of experience using iterations of the Divinity engine, Larian is well-equipped to deliver another addition to the best PS5 games and best Xbox games out there.
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