Hey gang,
It’s been a whirlwind few months here at the Larian castle, attending some of the biggest awards ceremonies in our industry, and we are absolutely humbled by the recognition we’ve received from our players and our peers.
As you might have seen, last week we attended the BAFTA Games Awards 2024, donning our nicest pair of pants to accept awards recognising Baldur’s Gate 3 for Narrative, Music, Performer in a Supporting Role (Andrew Wincott as Raphael), the publicly-voted Players’ Choice award, and Best Game.
This is the fifth major Game of the Year trophy Baldur’s Gate 3 has been awarded since launch, alongside awards from Golden Joysticks, Game Developers Choice, DICE, and The Game Awards. As far as we can tell, that makes Baldur’s Gate 3 the first game in history to win GOTY at every major awards show. Needless to say, our heads are still spinning, our hearts two sizes too big, and our mums are thrilled. What a remarkable journey this has been, and we couldn’t have done it without you!
You folks were the first to have faith in us, and for that, we are eternally grateful. Every comment, livestream, meme, and piece of art you created throughout Baldur’s Gate 3’s development let us know we were on to something special long before any of this. Awards are of course appreciated, but it’s this community that has been the true source of our resilience while we were making this game. Whether you’ve been active since the halcyon days of the Astarion body pillow or are a long-time veteran of Early Access; whether you’ve participated in our Panel From Hell livestreams or discovered the game after launch, thank you for supporting Baldur’s Gate 3 and helping to nurture this community of wonderful weirdos. It’s meant the world to us.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.
BAFTA Image credit: Getty Images for BAFTA
So, what's next for Baldur's Gate 3?
We still have a few tricks up our sleeve.
We’re working on our next game update, Patch 7, which will add improved evil endings to the game for even darker conclusions to your most sinister playthroughs, and yes, that includes you non-Durge players.
Without giving too much away, here’s a little teaser for what’s to come: be warned, there may be spoilers!
Got ‘em.
What’s the best way to get blood stains out?
These new cinematic cutscenes have also been given the musical treatment by our very own BAFTA award-winning composer, Borislav Slavov.
Dark endings usually make the music colours go dark too. Here is a snippet of music from one of the upcoming new end scenes.
Bobby, Composer & Music Director.
This one gave us shivers!
Patch 7 also aims to fix several bugs that you have reported, including Jaheira’s unwillingness to follow the group and jump into combat, Wyll’s less-than-romantic greetings, as well as the mysteriously disappearing Narrator lines from the Gortash and Dark Urge confrontation, to name a few.
This next patch will also begin introducing our official modding tools, letting you change up visuals, animations, sounds, stats, and more to overhaul Baldur’s Gate 3 into the weird nightmare realm of your dreams.
Beyond Patch 7, we will continue focusing on bug fixes, performance enhancements, and stability improvements to ensure you have the best possible gaming experience.
And yes, we are also actively working on bringing Crossplay and a Photo Mode to Baldur’s Gate 3, but the work required to bring these to you means that these additions will likely be further down the road.
Learning from our journey with you
It’s no secret that game dev is one gigantic learning curve, but it’s these learnings and your feedback that help us improve, so we are introducing additional internal playtesting ahead of releases to support our regular QA process.
With Patch 7 being packed full of bug fixes and new features we’ve yet to go into detail on, there will also be a closed beta on PC where a select number of players worldwide will be given an opportunity to test the latest update - which we’ll talk about more in the coming weeks!
Looking to the future
Being given the chance to develop a game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe has been a dream come true for all of us. But as Swen recently confirmed, we won't be introducing any major new narrative content to the story of Baldur's Gate 3 or its origin characters and companions, nor will we be making expansions or Baldur’s Gate 4.
As an independent studio since 1996, we value the freedom to follow our creativity wherever it leads. In this case, after six years in the Forgotten Realms and much discussion and rumination, we’ve decided to seize this opportunity to develop our own IPs. We’re currently working on two new projects and we couldn’t be more excited about what the future has in store.
It’s still early days - we’ll tell you more about those later down the line. But know that even as our focus turns to these new games, the sensibilities that brought you Baldur’s Gate 3 are alive and well here at the Larian castle. We’re fueled by the very same fire in our bellies, one that drives us to create immersive experiences shaped by your choices, and we can’t wait for you to join us on this next adventure.
If you have any worries about our change in direction, then perhaps this’ll help:
I don’t know if we’re going to pull it off, but looking at our narrative, visual and gameplay plans, I think what we’re working on now will be our best work ever. I get excited like a kid watching the key imagery, want to show it to everyone now and grumble in frustration at having to wait until it’s actually all working. Yes, it’s hype but it’s hype because it really looks and feels good.
Excited Swen, April 17th 2024.
