Baldur's Gate III

Larian combines the best of Divinity with D&D 5th edition

- Fraser Brown

Divinity: Original Sin 2 developer Larian Studios is working on its follow up to one of the best RPGs on PC—a third adventure with a new party of heroes.

Just what you’d expect from Baldur’s Gate III. Cue fainting elves and gasping halflings. Eighteen years after the Bhaalspawn saga came to a close, we’re finally returning to the Forgotten Realms.

The world’s moved forward quite a bit since the last games, so instead of picking up where its predecessors left things, Baldur’s Gate III is a brand new adventure set in the Forgotten Realms as it is today, where Bhaal’s unruly kids are history. Not to worry, though, as Larian’s got another crisis to fling at the unfortunate city.

With over 20 years of D&D-adjacent RPGs behind it, from Divine Divinity to Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian’s hardly a wildcard choice, but when CEO Swen Vincke first approached Wizards of the Coast, he didn’t get very far. Wizards called the studio “a bit too green” when Vincke tried to convince the publisher during the development of the first Original Sin. It was Wizards that got in touch with Larian, however, once Original Sin 2 was in the works.

“During Divinity: Original Sin 2, we had to submit the design for Baldur’s Gate, which was annoying because we were about to release D:OS2,” Vincke says. “So we sat in a hotel for a weekend the month before release, me and a couple of writers and designers, and we made the initial design document. It wasn’t very good, but it had the core ideas and they did like it.”