So you’ve finished Baldur’s Gate 3 and now you want to see if these Larian guys have ever made any other games you might be interested in? This is a great time to do just that, because every RPG the studio has ever made is currently available at some deep discounts on Steam.
We’ll start at the beginning with Divine Divinity, a sprawling, open-ended 2002 epic that made me a Larian fan for life. It’s heavily aged at this point but if you don’t see the primordial roots of Baldur’s Gate 3 in it, you’re not looking. And it’s less than $1! What else are you going to buy for that?
Next is Beyond Divinity, the 2004 sequel: It’s very much like the original but lets you control two separate characters. I recall the voice acting being brutally awful but otherwise I loved it. Also 89 cents.
Then we have Divinity 2: Developer’s Cut, an updated version of Divinity 2: Ego Draconis that includes the Flames of Vengeance expansion. I was a little put off by this one because it broke away from the isometric view, but “Ego Draconis” may be my favorite subtitle of all time. Yours for $3.
After that we have Divinity: Dragon Commander, and this one is a little offbeat, mashing up a political sim with turn-based and real-time strategy and also allowing you to turn into a dragon so you can personally go out there and kick some ass. I won’t lie, it didn’t float my boat, but I always respected Larian’s willingness to just go for it. $6.
Divinity: Original Sin, the game that almost bankrupted Larian, is also the project that finally pushed the studio into—or at least toward—the big leagues: A huge party-based RPG in a highly reactive game world that made RPG fans sit up and take notice. Did we give it the Spirit of the PC Award in 2014? You bet we did. $8 for the Enhanced Edition.
Then came Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian’s real breakthrough: A masterpiece RPG that would be a crowning achievement for any game studio that didn’t go on to make Baldur’s Gate 3. Also PC Gamer’s “obvious choice” for 2017 Game of the Year. The Definitive Edition of the game is $13.49 on Steam.
The only Larian game not on the list is its very first game, The L.E.D. Wars, an RTS that came out in 1997. Aside from historical curiosity, I don’t think you’re missing much, especially since we’re all here for RPG action.
So that’s at least a year’s worth of quality RPG action (if you hustle through them—if you dawdle you can probably stretch them out until Larian releases its next game, whatever that is) for just over 30 bucks. I’d call that a deal. For the record, Baldur’s Gate 3 is on sale too, but at $48 it throws the “holy cow that’s cheap” curve way off. The big Larian sale on Steam runs until September 9.
