The founder of Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios explains why it would be uniquely challenging to make an expansion for Baldur’s Gate 3. While he did not totally take the possibility off the table, DLC seems unlikely unless Larian can find a way to clear some major hurdles.
Larian’s Founder Describes the Difficulty of Making DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3
Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke discussed the possibility of a Baldur’s Gate 3 expansion in a recent interview with PC Gamer’s Wes Fenlon. He stated that while the studio is not ruling out future DLC, it’s not something Larian is currently working on. Vincke also talked about how continuing the game’s story creates problems from both a narrative and mechanical perspective.
Baldur’s Gate 3 technically has 17,000 endings covering every decision that players can make in the game. Whether or not each of these permutations should count as a distinct ending is debatable. However, there are still far too many possibilities for Larian to account for in a future expansion.
Even if Larian could write its way around that problem, the studio has Dungeons and Dragons’ leveling system to contend with. As Vincke explained, there is a good reason that Baldur’s Gate 3 caps players at level 12, and it’s the same reason that most D&D adventures are for levels 1 to 12. Past that point, D&D player characters start to gain access to some genuinely reality-warping abilities. High-level D&D spells let players instantly kill enemies, travel freely through the Astral Plane, and seeing the future, among other things. Meanwhile, the types of antagonists that players face in a level 12-20 adventure are orders of magnitude more powerful than anything in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Vincke did not necessarily think these were insurmountable obstacles if Larian wanted to make a higher-level expansion for Baldur’s Gate 3. However, he stressed that fans would be waiting quite a while if it happened at all. In the meantime, Larain plans to move on to other projects, but Vincke suggested that players should expect improved mod tools after Baldur’s Gate 3’s PS5 port releases next month.
