We’re all still eagerly waiting for Larian to drop Baldur’s Gate 3’s Patch 8 once it’s finished stress testing the thing, but we’ve known it won’t be making whatever the next entry in the series ends up being for a while now.
IP owner Hasbro has been left to that, needing to seek out a fresh developer or partner to pick up the mantle and make something that can follow the pretty tough act that is BG3. The good news is that it sounds like we should hear some something on that front at some point in the near future.
Speaking to IGN at GDC, Hasbro senior vice president of digital games Dan Ayoub suggested that while the company has nothing concrete to share regarding the future of Baldur’s Gate, it reckons it should soonish.
“We’re kind of working out our plans for the future and what we’re going to be doing with that,” the exec said, “And actually, in pretty short order, we’re going to have some stuff to talk about around that.”
Cool. Aside from the indication that it might actually have a thing to share soon, Ayoub’s comments seem pretty similar to what Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast senior vice president of digital strategy and licensing Eugene Evans said last year. There have been lots of folks keen to do a Baldur’s Gatey thing that the company’s been chatting to and it feels no reason to rush into anything uber-quickly.
In terms of the pressure in inherent to following something as beloved as BG3, Ayoub suggested Hasbro and whichever partner/partners it picks will be up to that challenge, saying: “I think that’s our hope, right? We would keep raising the bar and everyone just tries to go a little higher.”
Come on Hasbro. Swerve us all and make a gritty buddy cop FPS starring Gale and Lae’zel in order to throw everyone for a loop while whoever you’ve picked to do Baldur’s Gate 4 quietly works their magic in the background until they’re ready to deliver.
Until then, though, BG3’s starting to produce a whole load of interesting and ambitious custom campaign mods that can help tide us all over.