Divinity: Original Sin is still the "highlight" of Baldur's Gate 3 director's career because it let Larian Studios "start doing the things we really want"
Swen Vincke reveals his favorite child
Baldur's Gate 3 - that wee game that you might have heard about after its award-winning, chart-topping ascent last year - put all eyes on developer Larian Studios, but despite such a massively successful game under his belt, Larian CEO and founder Swen Vincke reckons an earlier RPG is still the "highlight" of his career.
Before Baldur's Gate 3 made the studio a household name, two crowdfunded Divinity: Original Sin games are what opened the door to for the D&D RPG to exist in the first place. "The highlight of my career so far was most likely the release of Divinity: Original Sin one, which was our first breakthrough hit, because that changed everything for us," Vincke said in an interview with BAFTA.
"If I would have to pick one, I would probably pick the release of Divinity: Original Sin because it was really a sense of relief - finally, we managed, after all these years, we managed to break through," he continued. "We [could] now start doing the things that we really wanted to do all this time. That's probably my favourite one."
Vincke doesn't brush aside the sweeping success of Baldur's Gate 3 either, though. "Obviously winning the BAFTAs, winning The Game Awards, this entire year has been insane, so there were many, many highlights," he said, selling himself a little short since Baldur's Gate 3 was actually the first game to ever grab gold in all major game award ceremonies.
It would be easy to just build on the hype with a Baldur's Gate 4, but the company announced that it was done with the D&D license and was hammering away at an all-new RPG. Though, some developers are apparently finding it hard to create something totally new because, it turns out, they "did a lot of things in Baldur's Gate 3."
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.