Why doesn’t Baldur’s Gate 3 have DLC or a sequel?
Larian Studios Following the enormous success of Baldur’s Gate 3, many players expected to see a DLC or sequel coming to the IP. Now, though, the devs have confirmed that that won’t be happening.
Baldur’s Gate 3 devs Larian Studios confirmed at a Game Developer’s Conference on March 21 that they will not be releasing any DLC or expansions, and there are no plans to work on a sequel.
They did, however, confirm that they are planning to work on a new game, but it won’t be anything related to Baldur’s Gate. Why have they decided against making DLC and expansions for Baldur’s Gate 3, or a BG4?
Why there won’t be a BG3 sequel or DLC
Swen Vincke, CEO of Larian Studios, said that the decision to move away from Baldur’s Gate 3 was ultimately made as a result of the constraints that came with making D&D 5e into a video game.
This decision wasn’t made lightly, as devs were actually considering starting work on a DLC before inevitably choosing to scrap it.
“Because of all the success the obvious thing would have been to do a DLC, so we started on one. We started even thinking about BG4,” Vincke said in an interview with IGN. “But we hadn’t really had closure on BG3 yet and just to jump forward on something new felt wrong.”
The main reason behind the decision, according to Vincke, was that working to make D&D 5e into a system for a video game was extremely challenging. The kind of work that went into it meant that Larian felt it was the right time to move on to something different.
“There are a lot of constraints on making D&D, and 5th Edition is not an easy system to put into a video game. We had all these ideas of new combat we wanted to try out and they were not compatible,” Vincke said.
Larian’s hearts weren’t in it anymore
The immense task of creating Baldur’s Gate 3 also ended up causing the team to just go through the motions and do the work because they felt they had to, and the passion started waning.
“You could see the team was doing it because everyone felt like we had to do it, but it wasn’t really coming from the heart, and we’re very much a studio from the heart,” he explained.
After coming back from a Christmas break, Vincke had made his decision and broke the news to the team. He believed that they had done all the work they needed to make Baldur’s Gate 3 and that it was time to “pass the torch to another studio to pick up this incredible legacy.”
While he initially thought the reception may have been an angry one, the team was reportedly “elated.”
“I thought they were going to be angry at me because I just couldn’t muster the energy. 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,” he said.
Baldur’s Gate 3 fans divided about the news
When the news of no DLC, expansion or BG4 from Larian broke, some fans were heartbroken to hear that there would be no more Baldur’s Gate content from the studio. Some even went as far as to blame Hasbro, the owners of the D&D IP.
While receiving an award at the Game Developer’s Choice Awards in San Francisco, Vincke took the time to express his feelings about how publishers tend to run things.
“It’s always the quarterly profits,” he said. “The only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say ‘sh*t I’m out of developers’ and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it’s just broken…”
Fans speculated that the timing of this announcement was not a coincidence, particularly considering Vincke’s comments about publishers in the industry.
“We have Swen coming out swinging about game execs being complete idiots. People controlling funding creating cycles of stupidity, getting rid of people,” ‘Zauberer-IMDB’ said in a post on Reddit. “Now, almost immediately after, we learn BG3 is it for Larian in the world of Dungeons and Dragons.”
Players who expressed their thoughts on the matter harbored negative feelings toward Hasbro, with some claiming the fault lay with Hasbro letting go of multiple devs who had worked on Baldur’s Gate 3 in a mass layoff they had in 2023.
“It’s almost like firing all the people who worked on the most positively received thing that has happened to your IP in a very long time makes people reluctant to want to work with you,” a player commented.
Despite these initial negative feelings, however, other fans felt that this approach from Larian was refreshing. Moving away from “milking” a successful IP, as one fan put it, was the right approach for many.
“Whatever Larian makes next I will be there to support the most GOAT devs right now,” a fan commented under a post on X discussing the news.
Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t going anywhere, though, and if you want to read more about it, you can check out more guides below:
How to romance Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3 | When to Long Rest in Baldur’s Gate 3 | How to craft Potions in Baldur’s Gate 3 | How to help the Local Rat & open The Pantry Chest in Baldur’s Gate 3 | How to complete Search the Cellar quest in Baldur’s Gate 3 | Best weapons in Baldur’s Gate 3: Stats, tips & where to find them | How to get Mourning Frost legendary staff in Baldur’s Gate 3