Baldur’s Gate 3 was an enormous success, and many people are wondering what Larian Studios will make next, now that it’s confirmed that it won’t be Baldur’s Gate 4. In an interview with Gamepressure (via PC Gamer), Larian CEO Swen Vincke said the company’s next game is codenamed Excalibur (which is also the name of his puppy) and that it’s still very early days with many key decisions yet to be made.
“We’re working on it. If we’re brutally honest, we’re trying to figure out what the hell it is,” he said with a laugh. “We have ideas. We have lots of little fragments.”
“If anybody from Larian at this point tells you this is what the game is going to be, they’re lying. They don’t know because we’re trying a whole bunch of things,” he added. “We have ideas, but we’re an iterative company. So we iterate. We’re trying things. We’re experimenting.”
What we do know is that Larian is not going to make Baldur’s Gate 4, though Vincke did confirm that Larian started working on Baldur’s Gate 4 (and DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3) before shifting gears.
Vincke wanted to make something new in part because Baldur’s Gate is owned by Hasbro, and he wanted Larian to branch off on its own.
“It literally wasn’t for us anymore. I think one of the problems is–it’s not our IP. It’s not ours. Obviously, all that success attracts a lot of attention. But it was always important for us to be able to do our own thing, to maintain the Larian’s independence. And with BG3, the miracle was that we were left alone so we could do our own thing,” he said.
Beyond Larian’s next game, Vincke is thinking even further out and has grand plans to create a “very big RPG” that will “dwarf” any of Larian’s previous releases. “It’s an inspirational goal. That’s it. I cannot say more, because it needs to stay in that dream-reality,” he said.
While Larian will not make Baldur’s Gate 4, Hasbro has said it is keen to expand the Baldur’s Gate series with other teams. “We’re going to take our time and find the right partner, the right approach, and the right product,” Hasbro previously said about the future of Baldur’s Gate.