Crunch is a widespread issue across the games industry, and as beloved as Larian Studios is, even it had to do some on Baldur's Gate 3.
Look, nobody likes to hear that their favourite studio crunched to make a game they love, but unfortunately that'll pretty much always be the case with big games. I wish it wasn't, and more should be done to circumvent it, but the game industry hasn't set itself up particularly well to avoid such issues. And unsurprisingly, one of last year's biggest games, Baldur's Gate 3, was subject to some crunching too, as admitted by game director and Larian CEO Swen Vincke in an interview with GamesRadar. When asked about whether the team had to work substantial overtime to hit deadlines, Vincke responded, "Certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past. It would be a lie to say that we didn't. We had things happen that we didn't foresee."
Vincke noted that in order to mitigate that, the numerous global studios that Larian had setup were there to ensure that the game had 24-hour coverage, making it so that no single person had to work more to fix a late-night problem. Just last week Larian set up a new Warsaw-based studio, which will be helping with the developer's next couple of "very ambitious RPGs". Vincke did also say that paid overtime did help soften the blow for anyone that did have to work late, though he also claims that crunch on Baldur's Gate 3 wasn't "as long as you would consider crunch." Offices would supposedly be almost empty beyond 8pm at night, and staff working weekends occurred "very, very, very rarely."
In one of his final interviews before Larian moves on to new projects, Baldur's Gate 3 director and company CEO Swen Vincke says the team didn't "overly crunch," but that it would be a lie to say "we didn't" at all. With two new mystery games on the way Vincke and the team are starting to look at what's next for Larian, but not before an appearance at the Digital Dragons conference.
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Larian Studios isn't making the next Baldur's Gate, but the third game's narrative director doesn't care what it's like, as long as it's not made just for profit.
Look, we all know that for rights holders, executives, and the like, sequels and follow-ups to established IP are really just money makers. And with how well Baldur's Gate 3 has done since its 1.0 release last year, it's an entirely safe bet that someone will be making a sequel. That someone just won't be Larian, as it said as much earlier this year, even if it was something the studio was on board with once upon a time. Wizards of the Coast is currently looking into potential partners for future Baldur's Gate entries, though nothing is set in stone just yet, so you'll have to wait a little while longer. But in a recent interview with GamesRadar, narrative director Adam Smith shared his thoughts on a potential sequel.
Smith explained that he doesn't really care about what a sequel might look like, for him the priority is that whoever makes it, they're making it for the sake of passion rather than purely financial reasons. "I don't mean that in a harsh way," he said. "What I would want is for somebody to do it because they wanted to do it, not because somebody said 'that would hit our earnings next quarter.'"