Baldur's Gate 3 studio CEO says that if he couldn't make a D&D game, Fallout and Ultima were the only other RPG licenses he would have considered instead : 'There was not a lot to choose from'

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke reveals the impact of acquiring the Baldur's Gate franchise on the studio's growth and the importance of triple-A production values for attracting larger audiences to RPGs like Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.

It's hard to imagine any other studio delivering Baldur's Gate 3, but Larian CEO Swen Vincke says the Wizards of the Coast property was one of just three household RPG names he was angling to work on.

"It would have been Ultima, it would have been Fallout, it would have been Baldur's Gate. There was not a lot to choose from," Vincke tells Edge 400 about the big names he thought Larian needed to elevate it on the industry stage, once upon a time. Larian never did get its hands on the Bethesda franchise, but the rich D&D setting of the Sword Coast proved ample opportunity to further the studio's ambitions. 

This interview originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device, subscribe to Edge. 

Following the shutdown of original developer Black Isle Studios, the popular Baldur's Gate license was sitting untouched with D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast. "It's one of those IPs that you know a lot of people will want to work on. So it would be great for attracting other people to the studio," explains Vincke of his reasoning at the time. "I felt like there was a glass ceiling that we wouldn't be able to break through unless we had triple-A production values, budget, marketing, all the triple A things.

Elsewhere in the interview, Vincke discussed the impact of those production values, and how they fitted into the game's pipeline, particularly when it came to cinematics. "From where I was sitting, coming back to my strategic vision for Larian, [cinematics] made perfect sense. If we were going to bring a game like Original Sin 2 to larger crowds, we would need to have triple-A production values, whatever that takes. Because it's only then that we're going to discover if there's a market for this type of game." 

If the myriad awards, nominations, and accolades that Baldur's Gate 3 has received in the last year alone are any indication, it would seem that the market for "this type of game" is well and truly thriving.

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