It's been a year and a half since the release of Baldur's Gate 3, and fans are still immersed in their second, third, seventh, or even tenth playthrough. With developer Larian Studios stepping away from the series, the future of Baldur's Gate now lies in the hands of Hasbro. Fortunately, it seems we won't have to wait long to hear about what's next for the franchise.
During an interview with IGN at the Game Developers Conference, Dan Ayoub, Hasbro's Senior Vice President of Digital Games, revealed that there is significant interest in Baldur's Gate from various parties. "We're kind of working out our plans for the future and what we're going to be doing with that. And actually, in pretty short order, we're going to have some stuff to talk about around that," Ayoub stated.
While Ayoub didn't specify whether this "stuff" would be a new Baldur's Gate game or perhaps another crossover like the one with Magic: The Gathering, he expressed a desire for a Baldur's Gate 4, acknowledging that its development would likely take some time. "It's somewhat of an unenviable position," he remarked. "I mean, we're not in a hurry. Right? That's the thing, we're going to take a very measured approach... We've got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We're starting to think about, okay, yeah, we're ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we're going to have some other things to talk about around that."
Ayoub also highlighted the immense pressure to ensure the next Baldur's Gate meets high expectations, which extends to other Dungeons & Dragons-related projects, such as a game announced by Hasbro last year. "I'm never one to shy down from a challenge," he said. "And I think anything that forces us to raise our creative bar, and developers love to have a high bar to go after, and I think we've actually seen the team push some really interesting ideas that they're like, 'Okay, we need to raise our bar. We need to go bigger on this.' And things like that. So, I think that's our hope, right? We would keep raising the bar and everyone just tries to go a little higher."
In addition to discussing Baldur's Gate, Ayoub touched on other topics such as Magic: The Gathering, Hasbro's partnership with Saber Interactive, and the company's overall game strategy. Look out for our full interview with him next week.
Every IGN 10 of 2023
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