After announcing that Larian Studios wouldn't be making Baldur's Gate 3 DLC, an expansion, or Baldur's Gate 4, director Swen Vincke revealed that Larian had actually begun work on planned downloadable content before ultimately deciding to cancel it because the team's heart wasn't in it.
Larian is somehow an independent enough to tell Hasbro to go fuck themselves but not independent enough that Hasbro told them to layoff people, and they said ‘okay’.
Nobody at Larion got laid off. Larion worked closely with some people at Wizards of the Coast to make Baldurs Gate 3, and those people got laid off.
Larion could make a game entirely on their own with no involvement with Hasbro or WotC (and they have), but they can’t make anything related to Dungeons and Dragons or the Forgotten Realms without Hasbro and WotC’s cooperation.
Larian worked with Hasbro to make BG3. Hasbro lays off people who helped them (from Hasbro). Larian doesn’t have much say about it other than “it sucks dude”.
Can’t help but wonder how much of this is due to Hasbro’s mismanagement.
As much as I’d love to see more content from them on BG3, seeing what Larian can do now that they have scaled up to being a major studio is exciting.
Edit: Swen said on Twitter today that it’s not on WOTC.
All of it.
Is anyone else still confused
Larian is somehow an independent enough to tell Hasbro to go fuck themselves but not independent enough that Hasbro told them to layoff people, and they said ‘okay’.
Are they independent? Or are they not?
Nobody at Larion got laid off. Larion worked closely with some people at Wizards of the Coast to make Baldurs Gate 3, and those people got laid off.
Larion could make a game entirely on their own with no involvement with Hasbro or WotC (and they have), but they can’t make anything related to Dungeons and Dragons or the Forgotten Realms without Hasbro and WotC’s cooperation.
Thank you for answering my question. That makes more sense.
They were lamenting that all of the team at Hasbro-Wotc that they worked with on BG3 was laid off.
Not that Hasbro caused layoffs at Larian.
Larian worked with Hasbro to make BG3. Hasbro lays off people who helped them (from Hasbro). Larian doesn’t have much say about it other than “it sucks dude”.
Larian didn’t lay anyone off. Hasbro laid off WotC employees who were working on support for BG3. They have no power of Larian.