Larian Studios talked about Baldur's Gate 4 and what it included before being scrapped, noting that the game was partially playable at one point.
This comes as the weekend marked the one-year anniversary of the developer's Baldur's Gate 3 and its initial launch for PC. After it was released, the RPG quickly became a massive hit for Hasbro and became one of 2023's biggest titles.
Baldur's Gate 4
Baldur's Gate 3 also became a commercial hit almost instantly and received a lot of year's end awards.
Because of how successful it was, many fans of the series have begun asking for more, and for some time, Larian Studios entertained the thought of another game in the franchise.
Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke talked about Baldur's Gate 4 during a recent interview where he revealed that the team once considered staying in the Dungeons & Dragons setting after they wrapped up development on their latest hit, according to Gizmodo.
It seems like the entire team was still "vulnerable" to doing more as they still had production fever. This led to them exploring a potential expansion or even a standalone title where they thought of trying to "add extra levels or make some new stories."
However, they then realized that an expansion for Baldur's Gate 3 would not be worth the effort, and the situation then turned into talks about a full-scale sequel.
While Baldur's Gate 4 was partially playable, it could have come no earlier than 2027 had the team continued development of it.
Working on the Sequel
Vincke said that progress on work for Baldur's Gate 4 went by relatively quickly because "the production machine was still warm." However, he said that things wouldn't be smooth sailing all the time, saying that they expected to redo it 10 times, said PCGamer.
When the team thought about doing an expansion, they realized that it would take even more time than just a simple expansion for Baldur's Gate 3. This idea is something that did not have much appeal to Vincke and the other developers.
The CEO noted that they should be looking at how they can do stuff that they can get excited about and not just work because it satisfies fans. He then spoke to his team and raised the idea of moving on from the franchise altogether.
This is, by far, the clearest explanation that the studio has given in explaining to fans of the franchise why it did not pursue a new project, according to GamesRadar.
