Baldur’s Gate 3 awards hurt development

Larian is evidently suffering from too much success with overwhelming praise for their latest 2023 title, Baldur’s Gate 3, receiving so many awards that it has hurt development on their projects. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 director, Swen Vincke, spoke with Edge Magazine about how award shows and collecting the associated prizes has hindered their ability to develop. Vincke explained the situation as a “real problem,” and that sending “rotating teams” of staff to participate in various award events had fragmented the development team. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 took the gaming world by storm when it was released out of early access on August 3, 2023. It has since earned massive critical acclaim and received numerous awards including Game of the Year from The Game Awards and DICE Awards. 

Vincke explained that he did appreciate the celebration of their new title but lamented how spread out each award event was, “it’s great that you have a moment of celebration,” but, “it would be cool if everybody could agree to do it all at the same time.”

Mentally and emotionally, Vincke says that the process can be “surprisingly draining on the soul.” He bemoaned how it kept the team from being able to close the book on the title, “we’ve all been more emotional because we can’t get closure, and you want to have closure at the end of a project.” 

At GDC in March, Vincke revealed that there will be no DLC or expansions for Baldur’s Gate 3 as the team at Larian moves on to a new project completely separate from the Dungeons & Dragons universe.