After putting 6 years into Baldur's Gate 3, its lead writer says the team "were just relieved" to see the RPG do so well

Baldur's Gate 3
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Baldur's Gate 3 has won dozens of awards and sold millions of copies, but that's not necessarily what its developers expected - in fact, some of them were simply "relieved" to see it do well.

In an interview with GamePressure, Baldur's Gate 3 lead writer Adam Smith reminisced about release day, saying that while Larian "knew it was good," the exact launch numbers were yet to be determined. "I did not expect it to be anywhere near as big as it was," Smith says.

Smith also says that while several members of his team went out partying, "a few of us stayed behind in the office. We saw the number keep going up and up on Steam. And there was a moment when we were just relieved. It's a sentiment that is shared We just said 'we will get to do this again'. That was genuinely great."

Baldur's Gate 3 had built some level of financial security for itself through its early access release,  but Smith's relief at the ability for the studio to go forward to make a new game seems to be a reflection of periods of concern behind the scenes. During a keynote speech at the Digital Dragons conference earlier this month, director Swen Vincke admitted that there were concerns that the RPG would be "impossible to finish" and that Larian's attention to detail might cause budgets to run out.

Clearly that's not been the case, as Larian is already gearing up for "two very ambitious RPGs", one of which is codenamed Excalibur. Sadly, neither of those is Baldur's Gate 4, but the overwhelming success of Baldur's Gate 3 suggests that its developer is safe for a while yet.

Check out our Baldur's Gate 3 review.

Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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