Video game publishers come and go. Sometimes if gamers are lucky, the closing studios' franchises are acquired by other companies. Studios like Black Isle, 3D Realms, Sierra, Acclaim, Midway and several others delivered great games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Duke Nukem, King's Quest, San Francisco Rush, the original Mortal Kombat and many other great games all had their heyday in the 1990s.
Hasbro thinks the game’s success is indicative of a desire for more D&D video games, but it’s wrong
It's what made it good, but it's true if it wasn't for that bestiality scene most people wouldn't have heard of it even
I'm sorry but larian studios carried this game. It would be successful with a different dev but not to the degree larian did it. They put real effort in and to look down on that shows how arrogant wizards of the coast is.
The product awareness brought eyes, but Larian made it more successful than the product. D&D games and the TTRPG are in a sad state outside of BG3. The TTRPG has gone live service with half finished products that cost a fortune. 5e modules are hacked up like a Ubisoft DLCs, and Never Winter Nights is a microtransaction fest that doesn't even come close to the quality of entertainment on BG3.
D&D didn’t “make” the game but Baldurs Gate is a well known name from the PC glory days of RPGs and certainly helped it. But Larian had to make a great game within that framework and they did a great job apparently.
Larian has made good crpgs for awhile, and never gathered a great deal of popularity. There was something about BG3 that hooked people in, caught their attention. It wasnt DnD, ecause there are games like Pathfinders Wrath of the righteous that went under the radar. It wasnt crpg, because plenty of crpgs have dropped in the past decade, including ones from larian, and never reached popularity. I propose it was literally what everyone was talking about right around the games release: Sleeping with bears, sleeping with other characters in general, and getting a cutscene even when talking with random npcs. I propose it was the presentation, and the brazen display of sensuality that caught mainstream attention. Then once people played the game, they saw that there was a gem under the hood. Cant forget coop, coop just took the game to a completely different plane of existence.
At a Game Developers Conference (GDC) panel today, Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke dropped something of a bombshell by revealing that the developer isn't planning to release any expansions or DLC for Baldur's Gate 3, nor a Baldur's Gate 4.
Instead, Vincke said at the panel, Larian plans to move away from Dungeons & Dragons entirely and do something new, leaving the IP in publisher Wizards of the Coast's hands.
Though this is sad it also makes sense because of hasbro doing the mass job cuts last year remember wizard of the coast lost 1100 jobs.
https://readwrite.com/2023-...
They probably wanted to do dlc but the people that worked with them are no doubt gone and hasbro might have shut the door on larian. I mean look at the wb games news with live service the suits are making so many wrong decisions.
Hopefully they got a good chunk of the profits as we do not know the extent of what hasbro gets being the ip holder of D&D.
I would like larian to do there own game now no other person's ip they made a fantastic rpg a wild west rpg next perhaps? there are timeline gaps out there.
if you have kept up with larian studios statements the past year or so you know that they have wanted to not do a game in the d and d universe. they felt too constrained by the wizards of the coasts rules. which is totally understandable. I'd rather they branch out into something else myself so as not to be typecast. Also this is just conjecture but: paying royalties for video game properties has got to suck a lot. You always hear about studios who have to pay royalties losing out big time in terms of how much money they leave on the table for the ip owners.
Discover the Baldur's Gate Star Wars mod: a thrilling blend of RPG and sci-fi, merging iconic lightsabers with fantasy gameplay in an epic crossover.
Never even thought of anything like this, imagine Larian doing a turnbased Starwars game based on the Starwars D20 sourcebook, I'd pay double for that
Black Isle... why oh why :(
Black Isle Developed :
Fallout (1997)
Fallout 2 (1998)
Planescape: Torment (1999)
Icewind Dale (2000)
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter (2001)
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter - Trials of the Luremaster (2001)
Icewind Dale II (2002)
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (2004)
and they are no more,life is so stupid
Does anyone know if Dark Alliance continues in any way? My only beef with that series was the terrible end of game cliffhangers. 1 and 2 made me want more.
good lord, all the DEV. used to make great games are dead now?? im hating ps3 games even more now.
WII-U here i come.