Did you know that a triple-A Fallout cRPG from Larian could have happened if the studio hadn’t obtained the Baldur’s Gate license from Wizards of the Coast? Larian CEO Swen Vincke revealed as much in a retrospective interview on the making of Baldur’s Gate 3 published in the latest EDGE Magazine (issue #400).
It’s [editor’s note: Baldur’s Gate] 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. 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.
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.
Out of all these three, Ultima is today the less relevant, with the latest installment (Ultima IX) dating back to 1999. Fallout, on the other hand, would have been extremely relevant. Besides, ever since Bethesda grabbed the license in 2004 and turned it into a first-person/third-person action RPG, a rather sizable niche of fans of the original cRPG games has been voicing its discontent on the change. Of course, there was still the little matter of petitioning Bethesda to lend its IP for such a project, a far from trivial endeavor. While Bethesda did allow Obsidian to make Fallout: New Vegas, the cries for a sequel to that beloved game have largely gone deaf, even in the face of the global mainstream success granted by the Amazon Prime Video TV show. The studio remains highly protective of the franchise.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter because Larian eventually got the Baldur’s Gate license, albeit not without some drama. As Vincke revealed, the studio had agreed to send Wizards of the Coast a detailed design document for Baldur’s Gate 3. However, the first draft they sent wasn’t great due to the creative strain caused by Divinity Original Sin 2.
It was really bad. But we didn’t have the brainpower to deal with it because we were trying to do Divinity Original Sin 2. Wizards then sent it back with the corporate equivalent of, ‘This is really shit’. And we said, ‘We know, but we’re releasing a game – don’t ask us to make this now. Give us an extension’. Luckily, they understood, and so we got another chance.
Given the outstanding outcome, we should all be glad it went this way. Those pining for a Fallout-like cRPG have a few alternative options, starting with inXile’s Wasteland 3, not to mention indie titles like Encased and the two ATOM RPGs.
