Aside from whatever patches Larian has in mind, Baldur’s Gate 3 is donezo, and the news has more than a few people looking for someone to blame. For many, the answer is obvious: Dungeons and Dragons licence-holder Wizards of the Coast (WOTC). Speculation abounds that WOTC did something to scupper its relationship with Larian, dooming our hopes of more BG3 forever.
But Larian CEO Swen Vincke has now come out to say that’s not the case. In a post on Twitter, Vincke said he’s been “Reading the Reddit threads,” and felt obliged to clarify the situation, at least a little. “WOTC is not responsible for us taking a different direction,” wrote Vincke, “On the contrary, they really did their best and have been a great licensor for us, letting us do our thing.” Rather than a dramatic falling out, Vincke says the decision to leave D&D behind is because “it’s what’s best for Larian.”
Reading the reddit threads, I would like to clear up something. WOTC is not to blame for us taking a different direction. On the contrary, they really did their best and have been a great licensor for us, letting us do our thing. This is because it’s what’s best for Larian.March 23, 2024
Well, isn’t that an anticlimax? Fans were assuming some kind of dramatic corporate rift had emerged behind the scenes, and now Swen Vincke comes along to assure us that, no, really, Larian’s heart just wasn’t in it.
But I have to say I understand where the fan speculation was coming from on this one. For one thing, Vincke himself made waves at GDC this year by denouncing publisher “greed” while accepting BG3’s award for best narrative. And that itself came only a few months after Vincke mourned swingeing layoffs at Hasbro, layoffs that meant “there’s almost nobody left” of the D&D team Larian originally worked with to bring BG3 to life.
So I can forgive fans for assuming there might be a little bit of bad blood after all that, but the big boss himself says we need to take off our tinfoil hats. Then again, it would be pretty un-CEO-like for Vincke to come out spitting venom at his former business partners, even if they were genuine bad feelings there. I suspect that even this statement from the CEO himself won’t stop fans from thinking that something’s up with Larian’s relationship with WOTC.
To be honest, given Larian’s freewheeling, shareholder-free nature, it is pretty believable that the company would rather do something else than put its nose back to the Baldur’s Gate grindstone. You’d probably be keen to do something else too after working on one project for years on end. I doubt the Hasbro layoffs helped, of course, but maybe it really is the case that Larian simply wanted to leave Faerûn behind.
