Larian on signing Baldur's Gate 3, approaching a new era, and games you've never heard about

I saw sides to Baldur's Gate 3 last week - at an event for the launch version of the game (due 3rd August on PC) - I didn't realise were there. I saw the game transform into a horror not far removed from Silent Hill, in an eerie Victorian-style hospital where nurses with rotten faces cooed around a grotesque surgeon who had scalpels for fingers and torture on his mind. I saw the game revel in gore through a headline-grabbing Dark Urge origin players can choose to play with, although it's not recommended for first-timers because, at certain points, The Dark Urge will take over your character and make you do horrendous things that will change your playthrough irrevocably. Seriously; I offed a major companion at the beginning of the game and that's it for me now - they're dead forever. I loved it.

I loved it for many reasons but primarily because it reminded me there's still so much we don't know about Baldur's Gate 3, despite it having been available in early access for nearly three years now. We've only ever seen one act, though, and there are two more. There's the darker second act I mentioned above, and the climactic third act in the eponymous city of Baldur's Gate - a place so dense with systems it's got its own newspaper that reacts to you. Its headlines will depend on your actions there, and in some cases, even the interviews you give.

Baldur's Gate 3 always seems to have a surprise ready. It's a box of chocolates that never seems to run out. And this speaks to the colossal project it's been. I'm always surprised when I'm reminded how many people have worked on it - around 400 people. To put that into perspective, Divinity: Original Sin, released in 2014, was made with fewer than 50 people. It's been nearly a decade of extraordinary success and growth for Belgian company Larian, which now has studios all around the world.

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