Interview: Baldur’s Gate 3’s creators talk D&D, turn-based RPGs, and dreams coming true

Enlarge / There aren’t any screenshots of the game yet, so this screengrab from the website will have to do. (credit: Larian Studios)

LOS ANGELES—Divinity: Original Sin developer Larian Studios and Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast didn’t show any gameplay from the newly announced Baldur’s Gate 3 at E3 in Los Angeles last week—but they were eager to talk about the long-anticipated project in sit-down interviews.

Ars spoke with Larian Studios co-founder and game director Swen Vincke and Dungeons & Dragons franchise creative director Mike Mearls at a hotel near the convention center. We gabbed about how the game came to be, what it’s like revisiting the D&D license, and more.

Here’s some background: Baldur’s Gate 3 is being developed by Larian Studios, the Belgian game studio behind the recent Kickstarter successes Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2. Both of those games took on the Baldur’s Gate formula with a heavy emphasis on emulating table-top role-playing freedoms with Ultima-style systems-based game design.