RPG veteran developer Jeff Gardiner is "thrilled, not threatened" by Baldur's Gate 3's success
eurogamer.netJeff Gardiner, veteran RPG developer, said he's «thrilled, not threatened» by the success of other RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3.
Eurogamer spoke to the ex-Bethesda producer at Gamescom and discussed the current state of RPGs: why they're so popular and how the success of Larian's latest game was raising expectations of the genre.
«I am thrilled, not threatened by great RPGs,» said Gardiner, when asked about Baldur's Gate 3. «I love playing them. I would never be upset by this. I think it brings more people into the fanbase of RPGs. As an RPG creator and player I really believe in RPGs — I always have since I started playing them when I was a kid until now… I will celebrate their success, I'll be their biggest fans forever. I am absolutely thrilled by it.»
He continued: «This is a daunting task taking on these games. They're huge. They have a tonne of game mechanics and a lot of lines of VO. But me and the team have done it over and over again. So I see that as, if that's the new bar, that's great. We'll take our shot on that too.»
That team in question is Gardiner's new studio, Something Wicked Games, which comprises staff from Bethesda, Obsidian and BioWare. Gardiner himself worked on both the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series from 2005 until the creation of Something Wicked Games in 2022. Its debut game will be Wyrdsong, a new RPG with preternatural and occult themes.
But in such a crowded market of RPGs, how do you stand out?
Gardiner believes that's «sort of a trap». «I think you should definitely define yourself and make yourself stand out from the crowd,» he said. «You do that stylistically both with the visuals of the game but also the way we're really focused on narrative in a way that's unique, not to the
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