Baldur’s Gate 4 may happen eventually, but not with Larian Studios

Baldur’s Gate 3 took the gaming world by storm in 2023. With a dense, resonant story populated by complex and lovable characters, frankly unbelievable player freedom, and a low barrier to entry whether you were familiar with the franchise or not, Larian Studios proved that there’s still a huge, hungry audience for the massive single-player adventure role-playing game.

After all the awards (Game of the Year at The Game Awards! Five BAFTAs!) and more than 15 million copies sold at the time of this writing, the future of Baldur’s Gate is starting to take shape. It just might not look the way you expect.

Is Larian Studios making a Baldur’s Gate 4?

No. Studio founder Swen Vincke announced as much this March, during a talk at the Game Developers Conference. “We’re not going to make Baldur’s Gate 4, which everybody is expecting us to do,” Vincke said. “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.”

He expanded on the decision in an interview with IGN, saying that his team had already started preliminary work on more Baldur’s Gate content, but that “the heart wasn’t there. It was more routine work than actually being excited.”

He made the decision to pivot in late 2023, and believes that it was greeted with relief by staff. “I saw so many elated faces, which I didn’t expect, and I could tell they shared the same feelings, so we were all aligned with one another. And I’ve had so many developers come to me after and say, ‘Thank god,’” he told IGN.

Larian Studios has released its license to the Baldur’s Gate franchise back to Wizards of the Coast and its parent company, Hasbro, so that another studio can take on the next Baldur’s Gate game.

Will there be Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC or expansions?

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

In the same GDC talk, Vincke also announced that Larian was ceasing work on Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC, with no plans to release any. The Larian team reiterated this in a community update post on April 18.

“Being given the chance to develop a game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe has been a dream come true for all of us. But as Swen recently confirmed, we won’t be introducing any major new narrative content to the story of Baldur’s Gate 3 or its origin characters and companions, nor will we be making expansions or Baldur’s Gate 4.”

But that doesn’t mean that Larian has stopped work on BG3. The company is still working on bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and even a few narrative tweaks. The same community post confirmed that the upcoming Patch 7 will add official modding tools to the game, “improved evil endings to the game for even darker conclusions to your most sinister playthroughs,” and “new features we’ve yet to go into detail on.” Patch 7 will have so many new features and bug fixes that Larian will hold a closed PC beta test to make sure everything works smoothly before launching.

“Beyond Patch 7,” the post went on, “we will continue focusing on bug fixes, performance enhancements, and stability improvements to ensure you have the best possible gaming experience.” It also mentioned that crossplay and photo mode features are planned for later updates, “but the work required to bring these to you means that these additions will likely be further down the road.”

So what is Larian making after Baldur’s Gate 3 instead?

Image: Larian Studios

That’s still shrouded in mystery! Vincke’s comments on the matter seem to indicate that Larian is returning to some ideas the company was working on before starting development on BG3. Those ideas reportedly include another single-player RPG that “dwarfs” BG3 in size and complexity — but Vincke has also indicated that Larian wants to wait for another generation of console and PC development before taking a swing at that game.

As for Larian’s true next project, Vincke told IGN that it’s “different than what you think it is” but “still familiar.” While the company is certainly best known now for Baldur’s Gate 3, its previous claim to fame was as the developer of the storied Divinity franchise of tactical fantasy RPGs, most recently Divinity: Original Sin 2. Whatever Larian does next, you can bet it will be an RPG of some kind (familiar), but given Vincke’s description… perhaps it won’t be a Divinity game?

Larian’s April community post may support that inference, saying, “In this case, after six years in the Forgotten Realms and much discussion and rumination, we’ve decided to seize this opportunity to develop our own IPs. We’re currently working on two new projects and we couldn’t be more excited about what the future has in store.”

Will there be a Baldur’s Gate 4?

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

Probably! And even if not, Wizards owns the rights to any characters introduced in Baldur’s Gate 3, so the company could produce regular old TTRPG modules, sourcebooks, novels, and other games based on the likes of Karlach, Astarion, Shadowheart, and the rest. Wulbren Bongle match-3 game, anyone? *dodges tomatoes*

It also seems as though plans for a sequel to Baldur’s Gate 3 are in the early stages already. Speaking to PC Gamer, Eugene Evans, the senior vice president of digital strategy and licensing for WotC and Hasbro, said the company has already started conversations about what the next Baldur’s Gate game will look like and how it’ll be made. “We’re now talking to lots of partners and being approached by a lot of partners who are embracing the challenge of, what does the future of the Baldur’s Gate franchise look like?” he said.

As yet, there are no further details on what that project could be. “We’re going to take our time and find the right partner, the right approach, and the right product that could represent the future of Baldur’s Gate. We take that very, very seriously,” he said.

But there is some good news for any fans who might be nervously eyeing the gap between Baldur’s Gate 2’s release in 2000 and Baldur’s Gate 3’s in 2023. Evans said that WotC and Hasbro’s plan was not to wait another 23 years before releasing Baldur’s Gate 4.