The fate of Larian and hopes on Baldur’s Gate III – translation of an interview with Sven Vinka

A couple of weeks ago, journalists from Eurogamer decided to talk with the head of Larian Studios Swan Winka. In the conversation, it came to the difficult path of the studio, the first attempts in the game industry and the current realities in which Baldur’s Gate III was created:

How do you feel as you approach the release of Baldur’s Gate III?

What exactly bothers you?

This is a very big game, and it does not stop surprising us. She has its own characteristics and quirks, both in terms of development and in terms of gameplay. We are excited about how the players will interact with her, and I just hope that everything will work as it should. This is perhaps my greatest concern.

But at the same time, I am very proud of what crazy results were able to achieve our team. The only realization of how all the elements intertwine with each other causes delight.

Is there anything specific than you are the most proud of?

The fact that the game works.

We wanted to cross the cinematographic AAA-RPG with systemic freedom. We strove for this before, but have never hit such a scale and such a level. That we managed to do this – a real breakthrough.

Our team is at the peak of our skill, and we have been preparing for this for a long time. Very talented people work with me, and together they did something that is a huge jump for us.

Recently, in the gaming industry, they began to talk more openly about the problem of tremors that arise in particular before the release of the game. Do you have everything in this regard?

You have so marked the treasures?

Well, no. People do not sit in offices on weekends, and for us this was not the problem of recent months.

On the eve of the release, the situation is of course more intense, because a lot of things need to be checked, and this is not easy to manage from nine to five. But a couple of months ago, I think the average time of overtime was 10-20 minutes, or something so.

As a rule, these are always the same people working with the game code. All intra -game content is already ready, so we don’t worry about it, except that we bring a couple of strokes. But this is not the situation that was in the past. During the development of previous games, we processed much more than now.

And what are you doing in the fight against crane?

First of all, the whole team works for this for glory, but sometimes unforeseen things happen. When you have so much content, something can always go wrong, and at certain moments you have no choice but to say “okay, we must work on it now, otherwise we will not have time”.

So, of course, processing occurs, but not on such a scale … My parents had a restaurant, and in the summer they usually worked longer than in winter. During any production, an accident can happen, and then you have to work more in order to eliminate them.

The current Larian position is very reminiscent of CD Projekt Red when she released The Witcher 3. I know that there are fundamental differences, but there are similarities – now your studio is about the same size as the CDPR on the release of the third “witcher”, you both develop and publish your role -playing games, and around what you do, the same level of hype. Given all this, it seems to me that you, like them at one time, stand on the verge of a new era. What do you think about this?

There are really similarities. Of course, we have a different approach to role -playing games, but I understand your logic.

Do you think that the studio is on the verge of a new era, and that after the release of Baldur’s Gate III, everything will change?

It depends on how people perceive our game! I can’t know that.

Many call Baldur’s Gate III “classic RPG”, although I cannot agree with this, given the expended resources of the level of modern AAA. Nobody has done this yet. Therefore, we do not know how great the demand for such games is, and we do not know how things will go further. We can only wait, and further events will determine what we can do in the future.

For CDPR, the Third “Witcher” was a great success that made it possible to make an even more ambitious “cyberpunk”. I know that difficulties arose in the development of the game, but even taking into account this, one cannot but note an incredible growth. So, we do not know how everything will pass, so there is no point in assuming anything. Although, from a historical point of view, yes, I understand why you are drawing such a parallel.

How much your plans for the future depend on the commercial success of Baldur’s Gate III? I am sure that you already have some developments, but how much they can change depending on sales?

I know what we want to do. For six years of BG3 development, we had various ideas, but first we need to understand whether a profitable market for games of this type is enough. If so, then we can continue in the same spirit, and if not, we will have to slow down. This cannot be known in advance.

Let’s look a little in the past. For many modern gamers, acquaintance with your games started with Divinity: Original Sin, but the studio began its activities much earlier, in 1996 – two years before the release of the original Baldur’s Gate. It turns out that you made your games in parallel with the legends of the genre.

Kinematographic trailer for the abolished The Lady, The Mage, and the Knight

How to work at that time? Where did you start and what you dreamed about when you opened the studio?

Well, we worked on a game called The Lady, The Mage, and the Knight, which in the future formed the basis of Divinity: Original Sin. Everything is simple.

The game was named so because you started it in three different locations with three different heroes who could be controlled in separate or as part of the party, as well as in multiplayer mode. During the development, we were most focused on Ultima 7 system freedom, but it turned out that it was quite difficult to implement, so we had to take a step backward. The main idea of ​​our games still remains unchanged – to create a free world with an environment that actively reacts to your actions and give you a set of tools to interact with it.

Everyone has a game that defines it. I played Ultima 6 – this was my first real RPG with a lot of text on the sides. And then Ultima 7 became the first “modern” RPG in my eyes. There was a disgusting combat system in it, but so much freedom and so much interactiveness that I did not even understand what I was doing. I just knew it was cool.

You happened to communicate with Richard Garriot?

Sorry. I think this is a meeting that is obliged to take place! In any case, The Lady, The Mage, and the Knight was canceled. What’s happened? Some disagreement with the publisher?

No. Our publisher at that time was essentially a developer. The company worked on the Realms of Arkania series, which was published by Sir-Tech in the USA, but in Germany they were known as Attic Entertainment. They began to engage in self -recovery and released several games that failed, which hit them hard and they ended in money.

Gameplay from the early version of The Lady, The Mage, and the Knight

After that, Larian made a turn towards the Action-oriented role-playing games such as Diablo. Why did this happen?

Because of publishers and distributors. At that time there was absolutely no chance to get a publishing deal if the role -playing game was not like Diablo. Even LMK could go out, but we would have to remake it in Diablo’s manner. I had an agent then, and he said "will not come out". If you say “action”, then the chances of the contract increase ten times. If you say “step -by -step”, then there are already no options.

I suppose you are currently worrying. How much can be the market for step -by -step games compared to action?

Well, I know that the market for step -by -step games is very, very large, because many people are now playing step -by -step games on their phones.

A fair remark.

The fact is that in the perception of the players there is something that was formed under the influence of old games, and which is not necessarily applied to the games of modern.

Baldur’s Gate III is a game on Dungeon & Dragons. Many people are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, even if we are talking about the initial level of knowledge. They are familiar with the concept of actions, bonus actions, and so on, and all this is implemented in BG3.

Our testers often said “I don’t understand everything that is happening, but I like it”, and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve in terms of immersion. In this sense, it is easy to immerse yourself in the game, but it is difficult to achieve skill, because it has many interconnected systems. It happens that players try something that it doesn’t work for them, and then the game refutes their expectation, as if “yes, so you can” too ”. This is most valuable.

Over the years that preceded the Original Sin, many events occurred in Larian, but I will miss them to go to what I consider the turning point for the studio. It seems to me that when the fundraising on Kickstarter to develop the first DOS ended in success, in Larian, and maybe in you, some kind of toggle switch clicked, and you finally decided to make a step-by-step game that you dreamed about from the very beginning. Is it so?

In fact, it happened before. The turning point happened when we returned the rights to Divinity 2. It was then that I said "enough from me". We tried many times to agree with the third parties, and each time we bend under them. We realized that it is important to take fate into our own hands, and since then we have been going on growing.

Trailer of the Kickstarter project Divinity: Original Sin

I read somewhere that you said that the DOS1 budget was more than the studio could afford at that time, so you had to delay tax payment.

It seems that you put a lot https://sistersitescasino.co.uk/ on this game.

Yeah, the bet was high. We have concluded a number of distribution transactions, but provided that the game was supposed to come out before the money arrived. Steam payments are also delayed in time, so everything is a little complicated. Most of all, it was nervous that I had to talk with the tax authorities in order to prove that this money will come, we just need a little more time.

And they refused to give you a concess?

Refused, because we were unlucky to encounter "this guy". The most offensive thing is that this should not have been such a problem. At that time we told ourselves that everything would work out, because we also believed in it very much. We knew that we were doing something unique, we knew what we could, and that we already had our community. We saw that this game will be sold well and in early access.

I remember the thread when one of the representatives of Paradox stated in an interview, saying “the number of pre-orders is always only one tenth from the final sales”, and when I saw the number of pre-orders of our game, I discarded “the Lord’s shit!". Arriving home, I told my wife that if this is true, then this will change all for us. And it turned out to be true. In fact, the final result was even more than ten times.

Then you realized that the situation in Larian has changed?

Looking back, I was amazed that the first Original Sin was developed by a team of only 46 people. And now you are ten times more!

Yes. Original Sin 1 was more focused on game systems, while the narrative remained almost aside. But in DOS2 on the narrative, we have already worked equally. Here’s what I had in mind when talking about another approach to growth compared to CDPR.

And if DOS1 had not shot, then you would have to close?

I don’t know. This is a very difficult question, because history has gone differently. We would definitely have no reserves left. This would mean that we would again work for hire and outsource, but we really did not want to. We actually stopped all third -party projects during the development of DOS1, so thank God, everything worked out.

Have you made the same large bets since then?

It is also difficult to answer this too. There is always a risk in which you have to go, otherwise nothing will work out. When working with one publisher, you need to think whether he will pay if he will go broke,. D. Here we had a story with publishers. And when you work with players who buy your game directly, you have more confidence that at least someone will pay, but in this case you do not have a guarantee for payback, so there is a risk too. So, these are always big bets.

Much “safer” is to release a lot of games with the calculation that at least one of them will be successful and will pay for all the others. Something like a musical industry. Therefore, large bets will always be made for the only game of the studio. BG3 is our big bet, for we have invested a lot of effort into it. And if it fails … Well, then we will have to return to the design board and rethink everything.

I don’t think it will fail.

So, Divinity: Original Sin came out and became successful. A new chapter in Larian history begins with her. After its release, you announced that you are preparing two more games. One of them was Original Sin 2, and what was the second?

We made two games … DOS2 and … what was the second? In truth, we had many projects that we later canceled. I have to remember this, but I don’t remember. It was definitely after DOS1?

Yes. It was in 2014.

I don’t remember. It was probably something insignificant. Something that we thought to develop, and then abandoned. There were many such cases. I mean that there are always small things that you try and then cool. Sometimes it was true, there have been major cases.

For example?

Fallen Heroes. We announced that we are suspended production for an indefinite time, but did not grow together.

Divinity: Fallen Heroes announcing trailer

It turns out that you canceled it forever?

Yes, forever.

There was another game that we did not even announce, I can tell you exactly. Soul For Frost Island. It was a separate game on the basis of DOS2, and it has advanced quite far in development.

What was this game about?

It was DOS2 with new mechanics. I will not tell you what kind of mechanics are, because we are still going to use them in the future. The development of the game has moved far enough, but we killed it in favor of something else.

It is very difficult to develop several games at the same time. In fact, this is the next big step for our studio – to understand this. We tried many times to do this, and have failed many times. The funny thing is that we did this even when we worked for hiring, so we knew very well how it happens. But who knows? Let’s see if we will be able to make the next game. From now on we will be more careful with the announcements.

Was the Development of Original Sin 2 quite simple for you?

What was simple was the technical component, because we knew well what we wanted to do, and from the very beginning we made the right decisions. But the narrative component became a great innovation in DOS2. In particular, this applies to organ characters-prescribed companions, each of which can be put on the role of a protagonist and have several points of view on the main plot. In DOS2, the storyline was much denser, more diverse and freer, which we wanted to achieve. It was the most difficult. Hence the majority of gray hair on my head.

As for the world of the game, some technical changes were made in the development process. We went on to physical rendering, and it was quite simple. In addition, compared with previous games, the development period was much shorter.

A few years ago, you said that in 2014, about the time when the DOS1 development ended, you started negotiations with Wizards of the Coast on Baldur’s Gate III. Is it possible to find out in more detail what kind of pitch it was – an informal conversation, an official letter?

It was an informal conversation. Literally – “Hey guys, we must do it! Look, this is our dos1. What do you think?"

And they are such – “Oh … a … it’s nice to meet."

But they remembered us. And when, then, a few years later, they themselves invited me to work on the game, their words were almost the same.

And when you offered them this idea, you already had a finished project, or you just said "I want to make BG3"?

Heh. I was quite arrogant if you want. I said – “Listen, we are a company that can do it! See what we just did. You must give this to us!"

And then they looked at me – “Who is this alien ..?"And they were right.

You were at least somehow familiar with them?

(laughs) Nope, I didn’t know them at all!

Actually it is funny that you mentioned CD Projekt-these people from Gog introduced me to them. So I got their contacts.

So, yes, I suggested the first. It didn’t lead to anything. But then, when we were still developing DOS2, they remembered about me. One of the first stages in the development of Baldur’s Gate III just began a week before the release of DOS2. Therefore, we had to prepare the first concepts by this time.

And when they returned to you what they said? Maybe something like "hey, you are not sure whether you remember us or not …"?

They asked if I was still interesting to me, and invited to Ceatl. We met in a bar in the city center. They had large sheets of A3 format (they are still stored with me), at which they printed the concept of the presentation, which they wanted to make for their board of directors. It was a plan of what we talked about. And so, a couple of strokes later went.

That is, you spoke to them about the real idea of ​​the final game?

And what was the idea? What was the original concept?

The essence was the use of the Divinity engine, followed by the World Forgotten Realms and D&D rules from the player’s leadership. This is now briefly describes our bg3.

It sounds quite simple.

I had such a discussion with one developer. Describing the scale of the game, I said – “Everything is very simple – you take the DOS engine, take the player’s leadership, write an excellent story and make it cinema. Voila! Is it difficult?"(Laughs).

Well, if you can formulate what you are trying to do in one phrase. This helps to maintain concentration. And this is really what we wanted to do – a cinematic role -playing game with the freedom that we had in DOS, as well as with the possibility of cooperative passage.

And at the same time, cinematography should not limit the freedom of the player. At the presentation, we played for the dragonor -hassle, but you can play for any of the available races, have various combinations of satellites in the team, or even play without them. There are a great many probabilities.

So, representatives of Wizards of the Coast transmit your proposal to the board of directors, it receives green light and ..

That is, this year in Larian simply discussed the idea of ​​a possible game?

No. Before signing the contract, we did not say anything to anyone. Therefore, we have been negotiating for a long time to understand our chances. At some point, the deal was concluded, and only a small backbone of the main Larian employees, who are now in the photographs (laughs), worked on it. And I was among them. I even have photos in which we are sitting in a hotel room in Seattle and writing that in the end there was a Baldur’s Gate III.

The idea of ​​the main plot came to you right away?

Yes, this happened during a flight from Quebec to Seattle. Then I looked through the book “The Handbook of the Volo on the Monsters” and saw a picture with a tadpolate, who climbs a man in the eye.

Can’t be!

I’m not joking. So it was.

We entered their room and asked – “Guys, what do you think about the freshwater of the mind?"And they looked at me and said that this is a cool idea.

This is a great start for the game. I like it when you do not need to explain the motivation of the protagonist for a long time. You have some kind of parasite in your head, and you must find a way to get rid of it. Everything is simple and does not need to be chewing.

Agree. I said that it would instantly involve history. Because “you will die and turn into a monster, if you don’t find a medicine,” sounds more intensively than just “you are chosen”.

And the very charm is that in your place there may be anyone, the parasites did not choose exclusively you. This allows you to try on any role. You are in the ass, because this thing crawled into your eye, and this unites you with a whole bunch of people who do not trust each other with the same problem.

Have you had any ideas for the game that could not be implemented?

Can you tell about them?

What, then back to the development process. It turns out DOS2, and her business is going very well. Can you reveal the exact numbers of sales of the Original Sin dilogy?

Honestly, I don’t know the exact numbers. I only know that DOS1 was sold very well, and DOS2 is even better. Many millions are the most accurate answer that I can give. The amount that allowed us to support the studio and develop a huge BG3.

Looking at the BG3 in early access – the game has more than 60,000 “very positive” reviews in Steam, which is usually characteristic of the most popular games on the site. This suggests that it has already sold in a huge circulation. How its success with DOS2 correlates? An order of magnitude higher?

By an order of magnitude, yes. BG3 is incomparably more successful than DOS2. Five times, if not more. I do not know the exact numbers, but it is much, much, much more successful than DOS2 was in early access. But this is normal, because many people now trust us, trust the gameplay that we offer, and therefore they were not afraid of early access.

According to Early Access BG3 standards, and we will be very happy if it is even more successful on the release.

So, I have a couple of small questions about the game itself. I really liked the novels with the companions that you showed at the presentation. Is it possible to go on dates with everyone in the game?

All companions with origin (that is, those that you can put on the role of a protagonist) are available for novels. There are also four third -party companions – Mintara, Halsin, Jahyera and Minsk, and from them only with the first two you can get a love relationship.

Is it possible to often go on dates with a satellite, or is it a single event for each individual character?

Novels stretch throughout the game. Some satellites are more open and fast, while others are in no hurry to admit their feelings. Depending on the plot lines, they can support you, or vice versa to doubt. There are quite a lot of romance in the game.

Why did you decide to make the 12th level maximum?

We counted him sufficient! (laughs) We have more than six hundred spells and active abilities! There were two hundred and fifty in DOS2. Is this not enough?! (laughs)

In addition, this corresponds to the pace of the game that we posted.

It seemed to me that high levels give space for growth ..

Everyone is talking about it to me! But at high levels in D&D, the characters literally become demigods, and how to preserve the role -playing waging with such madness?

It is not good to limit players, but you can’t put them on rails in a role -playing game. Therefore, I do not know how the most correctly you can integrate high levels. I will have to think very good about it along with the team.

If you wanted to develop another Baldur’s Gate, suppose a continuation, you could do this with your current agreement with Wizards?

I mean if you have to conclude another contract?

I really can’t talk about it. But I think that Wizards is very pleased with what happened from BG3. You can ask them yourself.

Well, finally, back to the previous analogy with CD Projekt – after the release of The Witcher 3, the CDPR has doubled for the development of Cyberpunk 2077. I think, from their point of view, they could not make less than in their previous game, and staying at the same level was not enough. How do you feel about such reasoning? Do you feel that after the BG3 you need to become larger and make even more?

In fact, right now the company is actively expanding, and we have grown much more than planned.

We had to do this because the game demanded this. We want to make kinematographic AAA-RPG, and we do it very well.

We did not expect that for this we would need so many people. We can say that we practically shoot a series of films – in this case, one and a half times the largest seasons of “Game of Thrones”. These are a lot of scenes that need to be removed, and for this you need an extensive team.

Now our main goal is to set up work in a huge team and synchronize teams of various departments. I will not talk about plans for the future, for they will be determined by the success of the BG3 and the demand for the following games. Who knows, maybe the players will require us something like Into the Breach? (laughs)

You have achieved great success in creating step -by -step games. Whether this determines what you do – are you now developers of exclusively step -by -step games?

And you can afford experiments?

Yes, sure. I like a lot, but I will never give up a step -by -step combat system, because I like it most, and I think it is very funny. These mechanics really work well, and they are much more understandable.

I think that if I wanted … it doesn’t matter, I’m not going to say it!

Well, no! Agree!

But this is not the main thing. The main thing is that the game is good. I do not want to make a combat system on the principle of "like in that popular game!"If it does not have all the freedom and systematicity, if it does not allow you to express the character’s individuality, then I most likely will not like it. And I would definitely not want to make the game identical to existing. So, it should be something new, and I can’t even imagine how it can be realized with the combat system in real time ..

And the last question is whether you have the next major project that you are working on right now?

What, it was nice to talk!

It was all the information from a recent interview. The release of Baldur’s Gate III will take place on August 3 at 18:00 Moscow time on PC. The version for PlayStation 5 will be released on September 6, and in the future the game will also visit Xbox Series.