Baldur’s Gate Co-Creator Praises Larian’s Third Installment as Great Sequel

Mark Darrah, one of the creators of the original Baldur’s Gate, recently appeared on the FRVR podcast to share his thoughts on the third numbered installment developed by Larian Studios.

The developer noted that 22 years passed between the releases of Baldur’s Gate 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3. A lot has changed in the gaming industry since then, meaning the old approach might no longer attract a new audience. He cited Pillars of Eternity as an example.

After playing that game, he realized that reproducing old ideas was no longer what he wanted:

Pillars of Eternity feels like a game on the Infinity Engine. But it actually is not. I played it and back then I thought, “Wow, it feels very much like a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, or something like that. Some of the same creators worked on it.” I kept playing and thought, “Yes, the game follows its inspirations faithfully.” But the reality is that the industry has changed so much since then that at some point I started thinking, “Oh, this is a very authentic adaptation of that era.” And it turned out that I no longer needed that kind of experience.

Mark Darrah explains that Larian’s project features the influence of the first two Baldur’s Gate titles, alongside a touch of Divine Divinity and other cRPGs. In his view, the resulting third installment is an excellent continuation:

[Larian Studios] was influenced by their own creative journey, as well as what cRPGs managed to evolve into over the past 20 years. Therefore, I believe that [Baldur’s Gate 3] is an excellent sequel. Given the such large time gap between the installments, they did exactly what was needed.

Darrah noted that Baldur’s Gate 3 also reflects the influence of other projects such as Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age: Origins, and other well-known role-playing games:

If you add Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins to this chain and draw a “development line,” it clearly leads to a game like Baldur’s Gate 3. If you do not account for these two games, then it is unclear what direction the genre could have evolved in.

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