Baldur’s Gate 3’s Development Involved “a Bit of Crunch,” Director Says

gamingbolt.com:

Larian Studios boss and Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke has spoken about the challenges of game development, and especially the difficulties the studio faced in working on Baldur’s Gate 3 in terms of overtime and crunch. Speaking at the Poland-based Digital Dragons conference (via GamesRadar), Vincke also spoke about the crunch that developers working on Baldur’s Gate 3 had to go through.

“Certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past,” said Vincke when asked about development crunch on the title. “It would be a lie to say that we didn’t. We had things happen that we didn’t foresee.”

Vincke went on to talk about how, despite best efforts, crunch can often be unavoidable in game development. He attributed this to the complexity of game development in general. Vincke also stated that developers were offered paid overtime, and most of the time, the studio’s offices would be empty by around 8pm.

“We didn’t overly crunch, but we did have to do a bit of crunch,” said Vincke. “And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you’re trying to finish something, especially when there’s so much complexity that needs to be brought together.”

While Baldur’s Gate 3 has certainly been successful for Larian, the studio has already begun looking to its next projects. After confirming in March that its next game wouldn’t be related to Dungeons and Dragons, the studio revealed not long afterward that it had two new games in development, both based on its own IP. Recently, Larian also opened a new studio in Warsaw, Poland.

When it comes to Baldur’s Gate 3 itself, the game is on track to getting official modding tools on PC, with a closed beta in the works.

For more details, check out our review of Baldur’s Gate 3.