Baldur's Gate 3 had less crunch than Larian's previous RPGs, but its director says 'you will always have a little bit' of overtime'

During the development of Baldur's Gate 3, the team experienced less crunch than in previous Larian games, thanks to global studios and paid overtime.

Crunch on Baldur's Gate 3 was "certainly less" than what Larian experienced on its other games.

Earlier this week, Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke spoke at the Digital Dragons conference in Poland, where he outlined some of the difficulties he and his team faced during development - including one brag that he instantly regretted. During a Q+A session after his talk, Vincke was asked if those difficulties had ever resulted in the team having to crunch - work substantial overtime in order to hit deadlines.

"Certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past," Vincke said in response. "It would be a lie to say that we didn't. We had things happen that we didn't foresee." To help with that, however, Vincke touched on the worldwide studios that Larian had set up in order to ensure 24-hour coverage and prevent any one person from having to work extra to fix a late-night problem (a seventh Larian studio has just been established in Warsaw, Poland, to help with the the team's two ambitious new RPGs).

Beyond that, however, Vincke said that paid overtime helped soften the blow if anyone had to work late, but that any crunch on Baldur's Gate 3 might not have been "as long as you would consider crunch." Offices would be almost empty beyond 8pm at night, and would only be occupied "very, very, very rarely" at weekends."

"We didn't overly crunch," Vincke says, "but we did have to do a bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you're trying to finish something, especially when there's so much complexity that needs to be brought together."

Baldur's Gate 3 sits proudly on our list of the best games 2023.