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Wizards of the Coast "now talking to lots of partners" about next Baldur's Gate
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this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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BG2 was a huge game too, and it took 25 years for a sequel.
They're not going to pick a studio and crank out bg4 in just a couple years.
I'll be surprised if it takes less than a decade.
Yeah, cranking out another entry to capitalize on BG3's success would be a terrible move. I'm so glad Hasbro/WotC are not known for making terrible moves. That would be so unlike them to trade in goodwill for short-term profits.
WOTC can put the name "Baldurs Gate 4" on whatever they want. They could make a Farmville clone in 2 months and release it as "Baldurs Gate 4" if they want. They own the copyright.
It just won't be good.
But it'll probably sell decently well.
It took less than 2 years to release BG2 after BG1. In the meantime Bioware licensed Infinity Engine to Black Isle who released Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale one year apart.
It took Larian 6 years to develop BG3 after Divinity 2. They moved on to their new game but that engine and assets could be similarily licensed to other studios to churn out some games using similar or simplified formula.
I believe the engine is larian's
That's certain but licensing engine could be additional revenue stream for Larian. They benefit from cRPG market becoming more mainstream too. And I'd kill for more games with couch coop implemented this well.
Definitely is. Try playing Divinity 2 and you will realize it's the exact same engine just with a modified ruleset to match Baldurs gate more. I actually prefer Divinity, they just have more freedom as far as setting and the ruleset than a liscensed ip owned by another company
Isn’t Wizards of the Coast scummy af?
Larian are the studio with integrity, why wouldn’t Wizards of the Coast go for the cash grab?
100% BG4 will be a cash grab
My understanding is that Wizards is mostly pretty good. Its their corpo overlords at Hasbro to watch for
WotC is a division of Hasbro now & if you use MtG as a reference you can see the plan seems to be to drain the swamp. I think in their shareholders meetings they want MtG to double its earning in 4 years... So I'd imagine they're looking for angles on D&D & BG may be the flagship for this.
Let me tell you as an employee at a studio where the parent company is widely viewed as shitty: it doesn't matter. The rot starts at the head, and even good managers can get shitty. My workplace unionized and got recognition, and our overwhelmingly liked manager then went and violated status quo.
Did Hasbro or WotC send the Pinkertons after that guy who got a pre release card? It doesn't matter, because a corporation that owns the IP still sent the Pinkertons after a random customer.
Was it WotC or Hasbro that sent Pinkerton's to someone's house to steal their Magic cards because a retailer accidentally sold them cards from the new set a couple days too early?
Potayto, potahto
The problem is that Hasbro is desperately trying to make more money from WotC. But fairly recent actions indicate that they don't have players' best interests at heart. They fired all the contacts that Larian worked with. So nobody is left who has even a modicum of insight into how BG3 was done so well.
I fear several cheap cash grabs are in store for us. The first will probably be a quick and dirty DLC that will come out in a year or two.
Hasbro fired more than half of the people at WotC that created the 4E and 5E rulesets.