Baldur's Gate 3's success doesn't make Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer want to make Pillars of Eternity 3 because he's "out of step" with the RPG's audience

gamesradar.com:

Baldur's Gate 3's success doesn't make RPG guru Josh Sawyer want to make Pillars of Eternity 3 because he doesn't think his vision would be able to turn a profit.

In a new Q&A posted to his YouTube channel (timestamped here), Sawyer was asked about the potential for Pillars of Eternity 3 following the explosive success of Baldur's Gate 3. The original Pillars of Eternity was, after all, seen as a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series, and Sawyer took the lead on both it and its sequel.

Sawyer seemingly implied that conversations have been had internally at Obsidian about making another sequel, but said in no uncertain terms that he probably isn't the best person to be directing one.

"Yes, people talked about [Pillars of Eternity 3] because BG3 was a huge critical hit, a huge commercial hit," he said, pointing to the big gulf in funding between Baldur's Gate 3 and the Pillars of Eternity series.

"Money doesn't fix all your problems, but there are certain things you simply cannot do without money. So for example, the production quality of the character models, the cinematics especially, all the animation, that's crazy. That's a lot of time and money. So it's an expensive proposition."

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, despite being generally well-received, didn't reach the soaring heights, universal acclaim, and indeed, sales of Baldur's Gate 3. A few years back, Sawyer himself said the "relatively low sales" of the sequel would mean the studio would have to "re-examine the entire format" of a potential Pillars of Eternity 3. Now, he has strongly implied it would need someone else in the director's chair as well.

"Looking at Deadfire and how it was received and looking at BG3 and how it was received, I feel like I don't have the pulse of that audience, even if I ever did," Sawyer said. "So whether I did 20 years ago or whether I do now, I don't think I got it now. Things that they like and don't like, mechanically, story-wise, things like that. Or I do get