Baldur's Gate 3 director says the game won so many awards that it affected development

[midian182]

In brief: It really says something about a game's success when it wins so many awards that it actually becomes a problem. This was the unique situation the Baldur's Gate 3 team found themselves facing when the brilliant RPG won virtually every industry award last year, which negatively impacted the game's development.

Larian Studios CEO and Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke told Edge that winning so many awards was "a real problem" for the devs. The studio even started to send out "rotating teams" to different ceremonies to collect the awards. This spread out the time commitments so no one section of the development team fell behind too much.

"It affects development. There's a lot of them [award shows]," Vincke said. "This has been a real problem."

Vincke might sound slightly ungrateful, but Baldur's Gate 3 has won an incredible 32 awards since it launched to universal praise last year. There have been multiple GOTY awards, and it's been picking up accolades in 2024, too, including wins at the DICE Awards and BAFTAs. Not surprising for a title that is regularly voted one of the greatest games of all time.

Vincke emphasized that he appreciated Baldur's Gate 3 winning so much. "It's great that you have a moment of celebration," he said, adding that Larian does "really appreciate it," but sending key members of the team to so many shows can take a toll, both on the continuing development of the game and the emotions.

It "would be cool if everybody could agree to do it all at the same time," Vincke said, referring to the awards season being so spread out. "It is surprisingly draining on the soul."

The continuing focus on the game and seemingly unending awards meant Larian struggled to find closure. "We've all been more emotional because we can't get closure. And you want to have closure at the end of a project."

In March, Larian Studios confirmed it was walking away from Baldur's Gate 3 and the Dungeons and Dragons universe. After selling more than 10 million copies, Vincke said the studio had no interest in continuing the saga. He clarified that fans shouldn't expect any DLC, expansions, or a Baldur's Gate 4. The final major update is due in September 2024, when Larian will be releasing official mod support.

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Baldur's Gate 3 director says the game won so many awards that it affected development

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I never considered the travel time in winning awards.

And he’s right that award season lasts like 6 months of the year.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I think the game is pretty solid, but honestly I kind of lost interest in it about 2/3 of the way through. Maybe I just played it too much with restarting and trying different character builds so I got used to the same story over and over again? Or maybe the whole dice rolling system grew old on me....it did become tedious and irritating to do for dang near everything single action.

I've still got about 1/3 of the game to get through and I haven't thought about going back to play it.

They don't need to expand upon the game at all, let it rest. Maybe just focus on anymore game breaking bugs that might come to light, but otherwise if there are none, let the game be.

I was more pissed with Larian dropping the sequel they were working on for Divinity:OS2 titled "Divinity: Fallen Heroes". BG3 is impressive, that's for sure, but I enjoyed the world of Divinity a lot more. Bunch of pansies....they really should pick it back up.

 

[NumberNine]

I'm always amused when I consider how shook the gaming industry was, how revolutionary and unsustainably lofty it was considered for them to... put effort into a game and sell it as a standalone product. Speaks very clearly to the nature of the industry these days.

 

[Puiu]

Time to hire a "rewards accepting" team

 

[FaTaL]

Couldn't get into it. The turn-based combat was extremely slow and annoying.

 

[stewi0001]

Honestly, I find the award ceremony stuff stupid.