Baldur’s Gate 4 Will Not Be Made by Larian Studios
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It’s safe to say that Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 has been a critical and financial hit, with the video game generating over $750 million dollars in sales and earning dozens of accolades, including the coveted 2023 Game of the Year Award.
Unfortunately, despite its incredible success, it looks like Baldur’s Gate 4 may not be happening anytime soon. At least, with Larian Studios at the helm. In a recent press conference, Larian founder Swen Vincke said the developer is moving away from Dungeons & Dragons entirely and will not be making a sequel or any other related DLC.
So just what does this mean for the future of a possible Baldur’s Gate 4? Below we break out all the details.
Why is Larian Studios stepping away from Baldur’s Gate 4?
During a talk at the Game Developers Conference on March 21st, 2024, Vincke confirmed that Larian will not be working on any expansions or a sequel to Baldur’s Gate 3. Instead, the developer would be handing the Dungeons & Dragons IP back to Wizards of the Coast and moving on to unrelated projects.
“Baldur’s Gate 3 will always have a heart — a warm spot in our hearts. We’ll forever be proud of it, but we’re not going to continue it. We’re not going to make new expansions, which everybody is expecting us to do. We’re not going to make Baldur’s Gate 4, which everybody is expecting us to do. We’re going to move on, we’re going to move away from D&D, and we’re going to start making a new thing,” Vincke said during the interview.
Michael Douse, director of publishing at Larian, confirmed the news in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “Had a lot of time to reflect on this incredible adventure as everyone has, and I can’t explain how excited I am for the next. Hope you join us for that!” he wrote.
Vincke also provided more context about the decision in a follow-up interview with Gamespot, explaining that the team initially wanted to develop Baldur’s Gate 4, but eventually decided against it. “That’s literally the opposite of what Larian is about. We want to do big, new things. We don’t want to rehash the thing that we’ve done already,” he said.
That doesn’t mean it’s a clean break for Larian. In fact, the studio is still supporting Baldur’s Gate 3, including rolling out patches and working on a plan to provide support for modders. Fans hoping for a sequel or further DLC, however, are going to be disappointed.
Will there be a Baldur’s Gate 4?
It’s almost a certainty that a Baldur’s Gate 4 will be released at some point in the future, although this has not been confirmed by Wizards of the Coast or its parent company Hasbro. That’s because Baldur’s Gate 3 was a massive financial boon to Hasbro, a company that has been struggling financially according to recent fiscal reports. In fact, the game was one of the few economic bright spots, earning Wizards of the Coast an estimated $90 million in licensing fees, according to a Bloomberg report.
With that much money on the table and minimal risk and effort on Wizards of the Coast’s part, the company has every reason to get Baldur’s Gate 4 developed as quickly as possible. In fact, Hasbro has indicated as much in a recent earnings call with investors.
“2024 is about returning consumer products to profitability, investing for long-term momentum in games, and driving significant improvements in Hasbro’s bottom line,” said Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks. “In short, we’re putting all the right pieces together to keep investing in our growth initiatives while expanding the ways our franchises reach fans through digital games… We expect a long tail into 2024 and beyond for this [Baldur’s Gate 3] mega hit.
The clock is also ticking as interest in D&D and the Baldur’s Gate franchise has never been higher, while Hasbro also faces growing financial pressures that lead to a massive round of layoffs in December 2023, including – ironically enough – a number of key D&D staff members who had actually worked with Larian on getting Baldur’s Gate 3 off the ground.
It should also be noted that shifting a video game franchise to a new developer isn’t uncommon for the industry. In fact, the Baldur’s Gate video game license has moved to a variety of studios over the years, including BioWare, Black Isles Studios, Snowblind and Atari.
When might Baldur’s Gate 4 be released?
There’s no way to know for sure when Baldur’s Gate 4 might be released or even if it ever will (although as noted above, the chances are good it will happen). Famously, it took Larian Studios over six years and $100 million dollars to develop and release Baldur’s Gate 3.
Assuming Wizards of the Coast moved quickly to find a developer and the game had a similar scope and timeline (which is reasonable for a AAA title of this scope) that means we likely wouldn’t see Baldur’s Gate 4 until 2030 or beyond.
Final Thoughts
While it’s disappointing that Larian isn’t planning to develop a sequel or any new content for Baldur’s Gate 3, you can’t fault them for wanting to go their own way and they’ve more than earned the right to develop their own IPs or work with other major brands.
The fact is that Larian has created a remarkable experience that’s arguably the greatest Dungeons & Dragons video game ever made. The question now is just who else might pick up the mantle and create a worthy sequel?
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
