As Larian Starts Its Next Game, It Leaves A Void In Gaming

Summary

Let Larian cook.
Larian's next game won't be here for a while, and no one else quite makes games like it.
The richness to its storytelling is a unique priority for Larian, and that makes its next project fascinating.

Last week, Larian announced that work on its next game 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:has reached the "li🌸ft off" point. In a move that seems poetic but is actually just a reflection of how buildings work, the team gathered in the same room they were sitting in for the final meeting on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3 to discuss the next project. Nothing is known of the game apart from the fact it will not be Baldur's Gate 4, nor anything tied to D&D and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the 5e combat system. So for now, just one thing needs to be sai❀d: Let Larian coo༒k.

A month ago my colleague Tessa Kaur wrote 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:It's Time To Leave Larian Alone, so is TheGamer just doomed to repeat this article every month until we hit a breaking point and stop calling for time to cook, and instead demand answers with the sort of impatient tone reserved for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Wonder Woman, or Tomb Raider, or Silksong? Yes and no.

Larian's Next Game Could Be Nearly A Decade Away

Wyll shouting at Karlach while her body is on fire in Baldur's Gate 3.

On the one hand, it would obviously be a waste of time to continue reminding our readers who are already well aware that games take a long time to make that Larian's follow up to one of the most impressive games of all time won't be completed in a matter of months. But on the other, Baldur's Gate 3 is such a rich game, and that quality made it fun to write about in ways that other games, though we may love to play them, aren't. It felt like there was always more to say about Baldur's Gate 3, new methods of playing it, new secrets to uncover, new dialogue options to experience. That helped it, for many not just at TheGamer but in the press in general, develop a sort of professional affection as well as a personal one.

I suspect this is part of the reason so many game journalists are ready to go to war over 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2, but are largely indifferent to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Horizon Forbidden West, a game th🌃ꦅat looks great and offers a fun time but provides little substance. That and the woke.

I love 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Insomniac's games, but I'm not really too fussed about what it makes next. Sure, part of that is the leaks, but most of it is because while I love 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ratchet & Clank on a personal level, I don't have much of a professional connection to them. Aside from commenting on internet drama or occasionally pointing at a cool thing and saying 'this is cool!', I can't do a lot with an Insomniac game. I want to see what Larian will do next because I expect it to be an important game for me professionally.

Baldur's Gate 3's Follow Up Needs To Be Rich In Its Narrative

Light springs from Isobel's hands on the balcony of Last Light Inn as she performs a ritual to maintain the light ward in Baldur's Gate 3

It's not just journalists who feel this way. People fall in love with all sorts of games for all sorts of reasons. Someone at TheGamer has a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:NEO: The World Ends With You tattoo. But it tends to be that the game with the most to say gets heard by the most people. Games with depth and substance resonate more often with players, and their echoes are felt for longer. Baldur's Gate 3 was a game that could bore through granite and touch your soul, and it’s rare games make you feel that way. So rare, in fact, that we feel the need to chase it. But Larian's next game needs to take a long time to be able to do that to us again, and all we can do is wait.

Sure, there are structural issues within gaming that compound this wait. The need for games to be bigger than ever, better looking, and more groundbreaking has seen development times swell - it's why no developer can truly be inspired by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Red Dead Redemption 2, despite its greatness. The push for quick profits funnelling studios towards generic live-service cash generators means fewer games even try to make us care on any level below the surface, and repeated short-sighted layoffs cause a brain drain that pushes talented developers out of the industry and clips the wings of those who stay by making ♒them fearful of creativity and robbing them of mentors.

Larian should not be our only 💎Larian, yet it feels like it is. But ultimately, its next game﷽ is just going to take a long time. We need to wait. You need to be okay with that and, maybe more to the point, so do I.