When Larian Studios announced that it wouldn't make Baldur's Gate 4 , opting to return to its own Divinity franchise instead, fans of the 20-plus-million-selling Baldur's Gate 3 immediately started to wonder who would take up the baton.
Baldur's Gate 3 was like lightning in a bottle in a way, so it would be a gargantuan task for any developer. That's why RPG veteran James Ohlen , who actually worked on the first two franchise installments, turned down Wizards of the Coast when offered the chance to helm the sequel .
However, Cyprus-based developer Owlcat Games doesn't seem too daunted by the prospect. That's what co-founder Alexander Mishulin told IGN , though he also clarified that an Owlcat-made Baldur's Gate 4 would look a lot different from BG3.
First of all, I would like to thank all the players, all your audience that consider us to be able to do that. It's a really great honor. You already said that we are a little bit masochistic. So yeah, we will consider it a great challenge.
In my opinion, Larian has made their own vision of how a sequel to Baldur's Gate should be, and they presented it to us. Any other studio that will be doing Baldur's Gate 4 will be doing their own game in the Baldur's Gate setting. It will not be Larian's BG3, because BG3 is very Larian formula, with all their ideas for combat and how they mix with Dungeons & Dragons, with their idea of the co-op experience and how it plays into the Dungeons & Dragons experience. So any studio that would be trying to replicate that is bound to fail. It’s just not the way it works. Larian were making such games for 20 years, 30 years right now, starting from the first Divinity. It's their view of the games, it's their view of RPGs, and it's a great game.
But other studios will do something differently. They will have their own DNA, their own ideas, and they will pour them into Baldur’s Gate 4, and it will be something else. I hope that there will be a studio brave enough and passionate enough and skillful enough to do that game.
To be clear, there's nothing official for the time being. However, fans have long wished Owlcat Games would be picked for the project. There's no great mystery there: they're simply the most qualified studio for the job, as shown by their long streak of successful cRPGs, from Pathfinder: Kingmaker to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous , and most recently Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader .
There's another one on the way, Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy . However, I would say that the biggest obstacle to Owlcat making Baldur's Gate 4 may well be The Expanse: Osiris Reborn . Owlcat has substantially bulked up (it now has around 600 employees) to make that project alongside Dark Heresy. That's right around the kind of workforce they'd need for BG4, but they are split between two projects; while they're both almost done, chances are, if successful, the studio will want to make sequels, especially with The Expanse.
It's their first third-person action-oriented game, and it could allow them to break into the mainstream as the Mass Effect community is still seeking a spiritual successor (though there's also EXODUS from Wizards of the Coast, originally designed by the aforementioned James Ohlen, vying for that crown) to BioWare's masterpiece. Plus, I really loved the demo. So, as much as I'd love Baldur's Gate 4 made by Owlcat, I'm not sure I'd sacrifice their existing games to do it - nor am I sure they would really want to.
Wizards of the Coast and the fans might have to continue looking elsewhere. In the meantime, at least there's the rumored Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 remakes on the way, not to mention the upcoming HBO TV series directed by Craig Mazin .
About the author : With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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