New Baldur’s Gate 4 Game Promises to Impress, Even Without Larian Studios

In any case, this is what Dan Ayoub, director of digital product development at Wizards of the Coast, the company that holds the rights to the Dungeons & Dragons license, itself owned by Hasbro, said. As a reminder, Larian Studios has, to the great dismay of fans, abandoned Baldur's Gate 4 to tackle its own projects. But that obviously didn't dismantle Habsro and Wizards of the Coast. Quite the contrary.

Spend lavishly on Baldur's Gate 4 and similar video games

In all respects, Baldur's Gate 3 shook the video game industry to its core. The independents from Larian Studios have achieved several feats with this masterpiece. On the one hand, they gave a superb lesson even to AAA publishers of what a job well done and passionate can achieve. On the other hand, they completely revived interest in the C-RPG genre, until then quite niche, and put the video game adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons back in the spotlight.

Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate 4 will be made without this extremely talented studio. Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, who hold the Dungeons & Dragons license, must therefore continue this perilous project without them. Dan Ayoub from Wizards of the Coast wanted to be reassuring on this subject in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz. “ We have a considerable investment in our structure. We have invested more than a billion dollars on games currently in development “.

Does a mountain of gold coins bring happiness?

We already know about some upcoming Dungeons & Dragons games. We notably have a cooperative game developed by Star Breeze (Pay Day), expected in 2026. A VR game by Resolution Games (Demeo) is also in production. Finally, Invoke Studios (to whom we owe the rather bad Dark Alliance of 2021) would be working on a game developed on Unreal Engine 5 since 2022. This would be the most advanced project to date. We know that Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast intend to produce a Baldur's Gate 4 of their own.

But can a massive investment in gold coins be enough to repeat Larian Studios' brilliant feat with Baldur's Gate 3? With the exception of the two previous opuses developed by BioWare, we cannot say that other Dungeons & Dragons video games have been as successful. “ If we've learned anything from the success of Baldur's Gate 3, it's that people really love a well-made D&D game “. This makes sense, but unfortunately is not within the reach of just anyone, regardless of the amount of money invested. So let's hope for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast that they find a studio as talented as Larian for Baldur's Gate 4.

Dan Ayoub is cautious about the continuation of the players' adventures in the Forgotten Realms. “ Everything will stay in the oven for as long as necessary. We are not going to rush things. Video games are an integral part of Hasbro's strategy for the next 100 years “. Here's hoping, however, that Baldur's Gate 4 doesn't take that long to release, in any form.