Baldur’s Gate 3 Expansion Very Unlikely After Larian CEO Casts Serious Doubts Over It

Baldur’s Gate 3, an action role-playing game based on Dungeons and Dragons, might not receive an expansion as Larian Studios, the developers behind the game, has not started working on it. This was conceded by Larian CEO Swen Vincke in an interview with the gaming news website PC Gamer. This caused some dismay among Baldur’s Gate franchise aficionados as they were actually expecting an expansion, even if it was nothing major.

Although the Larian CEO did not rule out the possibility of an expansion completely, he did say a few things that indicate the unlikability of Baldur’s Gate 3 ever getting an expansion. The title is based on 12 out of 20 possible levels of the D&D board game. This fact had few of the fans convinced that the game was perfectly set up to receive an expansion that would include the remaining 8 levels of D&D. When asked about this, he said,

[Level 12-20] Adventures require a different way of doing things, in terms of antagonists you’re going to have to deal with, which require a lot of development to do them properly. Which would make this much more than an expansion in terms of development effort. A lot of D&D adventures are sub-level 12 for precisely that reason. So it sounds like neat, easy expansion material until you start thinking about it and it’s not as easy as one would imagine.”

He is not entirely wrong there, as the last 8 levels of the D&D have different and higher-level challenges, while the players also receive very overpowered nerfs beyond level 12. So the work and time required to develop such an update would be abnormal for a DLC. And, as Vinke rightly said in the interview, the fans “would have to wait for a long time” even if the studio ever got around to working on the update, and would be equivalent to working on an entirely new game.

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Seeing this in light of his recent statement, in which he declared that Larian will now focus on multiple smaller projects, Baldur’s Gate 3 expansion seems very unlikely. This might disappoint Baldur’s Gate fans as both of the previous two installations of the series received major and exciting updates. But despite all his dismissals, there is something for the fans to hold onto, as Vincke did not put a definite end to the possibility of an expansion for the game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was released on August 3 to an unexpectedly positive and overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception even surpassing Larian Studios’ assessments. The title sold more than 2.5 million copies on PC “via Steam Early Access” and also became the best-selling preorder on PlayStation. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available only on PC for now. The game will be released for macOS and PlayStation 5 on the 6th of September. The Xbox Series S release date is yet to be announced as the studio is struggling to cope with the task of developing the action-RPG title for Microsoft’s flagship console.