Baldur’s Gate 3 is a grand success, not just as a TTRPG but in the gaming industry as a whole. It came out alongside other highly anticipated games that were released by industry giants, yet managed to come out on top and with very positive reviews.
It’s true that timing can make or break a game’s success, but Larian Studios cleverly navigated a crowded release schedule by highlighting three aspects that differentiated the game from others.
Vincke Shares How the Team Brought out Baldur’s Gate 3’s Strengths
Around the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, Bethesda’s highly anticipated Starfield was dominating the community buzz. People had been waiting for the game since 2018, and after several delays, when it received a proper release date, you best believe that everyone was going to have their eyes on it.
During an interview, when talking about the release of Starfield coinciding with Larian’s new game, Vincke said:
If you’re at sea and a bigger boat passes by, the rule is that you go out of the way for the bigger boat – they were the bigger boat. We went out of the way for [Bethesda], but we still wanted the world to pay attention to us.
Sure, Starfield wasn’t as well received as expected, and that allowed other games to gain an edge over it. It would be false to completely attribute that to Baldur’s Gate 3, however.
The game is very different from Starfield, but both are large-scale, open-world games that have a lot of dialogue and give players the ability to shape their adventure in some way or another.
For this reason, Larian’s Swen Vincke expressed that the game’s unique aspects needed to be highlighted to drive it into the player’s mind that both titles were different:
We had a lot of narrative-heavy permutations, so we wanted to showcase that the game was very big on identity, and how that identity [is] reflected into the game.
He continued,
We were also a much more cinematic game. Immersion gameplay was similar in what our ambitions were.
However, other consequences happened after the release of Larian’s game – not for the studio itself but for others in the industry.
Vincke Is Empathetic Toward Games That Were Overshadowed
The impact felt by other games in the scene following the new Baldur’s Gate release wasn’t just for AAA titles like Starfield but also for indie developers struggling to find breathing room in the crowded release schedule.
Vincke was empathetic for the challenges faced by fellow developers and acknowledged the cascading effect of the game’s success on other games’ release dates.
Reflecting on the situation, he says the industry needs greater transparency and collaboration regarding release dates.
He felt sorry for the unintentional impact Larian left and understood the importance of allowing each game to shine in its own time.
What do you think of Vincke’s statement on conflicting release schedules? Feel free to express your opinion in the comments below!
