Baldur’s Gate 3 is the big hit of 2023. Players love the world and the possibilities that arise. There will likely be no Baldur’s Gate 4, even though Larian Studios already had playable aspects, as revealed in an interview.
What about Baldur’s Gate 4? Despite the massive success of their role-playing game, Larian decided against a fourth installment. The studio announced in March that they did not want to make a DLC or a sequel. They wanted to move away from D&D.
However, the idea of a fourth installment was probably not completely off the table from the start, as Swen Vincke revealed in an interview with PCGamer. There were even playable sections; ultimately, however, Larian Studios decided against a fourth part.
Nearly a year after release, the game is still doing well: Baldur’s Gate 3 turns 1 year old, still has 100,000 players daily on Steam, and I know why
No desire for the easy way
In the interview, Vincke explains that work on Baldur’s Gate 4 began because they were still in the groove from the third part. It went so well that they had playable sequences that players apparently liked.
I believe you would all have liked it. I’m even sure of that. And we were actually quite fast because the production machine was still warm. You could already play things. But it was played and watched, and, well, that’s okay.
Swen Vincke on Baldur’s Gate 4 (Source: PCGamer)
Why did the team decide against Baldur’s Gate 4? Meanwhile, considerations came up. Did they really want to make Baldur’s Gate again for several years after having spent six years on it already? The idea of Baldur’s Gate 4 sounded good to him because they were already experienced and the players would love it.
However, he and the team ultimately decided against a fourth part because they did not want to deal with the same things, the exact same mechanics, the same problems that [they] had already solved, just further developed
. Moreover, they would then have to put planned things on the back burner.
For the team, it was the right decision. Vincke explains in the interview that the team felt good about the decision. They felt free and the morale should be high because they were doing something new. We are doing our own thing again, we are not rehashing, we are not trying to turn the rules from 50 years ago into something new.
However, he also makes it clear that they have no problem with D&D itself. It will always be one of the coolest things he has worked on. In the future, Larian Studios wants to focus on other projects that offer the team new challenges. The new challenge will also be to develop two games simultaneously: Instead of Baldur’s Gate 4: Larian is working on two new games
