Summary
A big expansion pack forBaldur’s Gate 3isn’t currently in active production, according to developer Larian Studios, but it’s not impossible that it might still happen sometime down the line. A recent interview with the founder of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, revealed much on how the dev feels about the game’s release and its success, and why moving on from its current balance would be a heck of feat.
The sheerpopularity ofBaldur’s Gate 3cannot be overstated, with the game beating record after record following its launch from Steam’s Early Access program.Baldur’s Gate 3is doing so well, in fact, that it’s already managed to compete with the monumental release ofHogwarts Legacyfrom earlier in 2023, signifying the success of Larian Studios' seminal CRPG.
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One of the things thatDungeons and Dragonsplayers jumping intoBaldur’s Gate 3will have already noticed, however, is that Larian Studios has opted for a relatively low character level cap in the game. The max is 12, compared toD&D’s max baseline of 20, and this was brought up in PC Gamer’s recent interview with Swen Vincke. According to Vincke, it would be “very hard” for Larian to balanceD&D’s level 20 spells, like Foresight and Wish, in the context ofBaldur’s Gate 3, and doing so would “make [DLC] much more than an expansion in terms of development effort.”
Vincke thus admitted that Larian Studios is not working on a DLC of any sort at this time, and even though he didn’t outright deny the possibility of it happening, he said that fans would need to wait “for a long time” for anything on that front. AsBaldur’s Gate 3is a huge RPG adventure, it’s not like players will be running out of things to do in the game, so it’s hardly a wash.
It’s worth pointing out that someclassicD&Dclasses are missing fromBaldur’s Gate 3, and introducing them into the base game post-launch may be less of a hassle for Larian Studios than reaching character level 20 would be. It’s still a huge amount of effort, however, and the job may be better suited for the game’s modding community sometime down the line.
Baldur’s Gate 3still has some issues, such as the game’s reliance on an external launcher on top of Steam, for example. Larian’s decision to implement this feature is curious and forces players to wait a bit longer before jumping into the game after opening it up on Steam, making some wonder why the developer would follow such a strange industry trend.
Baldur’s Gate 3is out now on PC, with a PS5 version releasing on September 6.
