If it wasn't for Baldur's Gate 3, Larian would have made Fallout - Sven Vincke

The CEO of Larian, developers of Baldur's Gate 3, says that if they hadn't been able to reach an agreement with Wizards of the Coast, the company would have made Fallout, Ultima, or something similar.

It's hard to overstate how powerful Baldur's Gate 3 turned out to be. It's a huge sales hit, it has received all the gaming awards and turned Larian, already respected for its outstanding games Divinity: Original Sin, into the flagship RPG. In the latest issue of Edge magazine, Larian's CEO Swen Vincke said that the studio had and still has big ambitions.

Divinity games are good and have popularity among devoted fans of role-playing games, but they don't have the brand recognition like Baldur's Gate and Dungeons and Dragons. Vincke believes that gaining the right to work in this "territory" would have taken Larian to the "top league" (and it did).

"I felt like there was a glass ceiling that we wouldn't be able to break through if we didn't have AAA production assets, budget, marketing, all things AAA... It would have been Ultima, it would have been Fallout, it would have been Baldur's Gate, there wasn't much to choose from," Vincke said.

The CEO also talked about how close Larian was to not getting the Baldur's Gate license. The studio had to develop the game design document while finishing work on Divinity: Original Sin 2, the studio had to quickly come up with something, and according to Vincke, "it was very bad."

"Wizards sent it back with the corporate equivalent of a 'that's really crappy'. And we said, 'We know, but we're releasing the game – don't ask us to do that now.' Fortunately, they understood, and we got another chance."

Despite the success of Baldur's Gate 3, the prospect of a Fallout from Larian seems tempting – especially if it were something in the style of Interplay games. Ultima is also interesting, but not as popular and well-known brand now.

Back in March, Larian announced that after the wild success of Baldur's Gate 3, the company is moving on to other games – no sequels or DLCs made by Larian will be released. Instead, the studio is working on two "very ambitious RPGs", neither of which is based on D&D.

Source: PC Gamer