‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ dev says it won’t elevate the “standard” for RPGs because something cooler will come along

Responding to discourse regarding whether or not Baldur’s Gate 3 should set a “new standard” for the role-playing genre, Larian Studios said that the industry moves too quickly for any standards to settle in.

Swen Vincke, who is both the CEO of Larian Studios and the creative director of Baldur’s Gate 3, spoke in an interview on the most recent episode of the Friends Per Second podcast (July 30).

“When I started out, Ubisoft launched Assassin’s Creed, and everybody was saying, ‘everything’s going to be like Assassin’s Creed, you’re all doomed, no one’s going to be able to make this game anymore,’” recalled Vincke.

He stressed that Baldur’s Gate 3 has benefitted from a large team but that there is “so much stuff” that developers could create rather than copying or emulating the upcoming fantasy role-playing game.

“When it comes to standards, standards change continuously, so I don’t think that is something people should be worried about [with Baldur’s Gate 3],” continued the CEO. “Games like ours are very specific, it’s what we wanted to make and what we specialize in so it’s logical that we have a certain pedigree in creating it. Because we’ve been building these games for 20 years already.”

Set up in 1996, Larian Studios has developed a sizeable number of games, including educational ones, but it is most famous for the Divinity series.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as a game that says ‘Oh this is the standard, and everyone has to hold themselves to it,’ because tomorrow somebody else will come up with something new and cool,” concluded Vincke. “Standards change so rapidly that there are no standards.”

In other gaming news, the Path of Exile 2 team said that it feels “very bad” for Blizzard Entertainment following the poor response to Diablo 4‘s patch 1.1.1.