Larian’s Big Next Step After Baldur’s Gate 3
Larian Studios is riding high after the huge success of Baldur’s Gate 3, and its next project is officially on the way. The new game is called simply Divinity, and it is set in Rivellon, the fantasy world from Divinity Original Sin and its sequel.
Larian is calling Divinity its biggest and most ambitious RPG yet. That is a bold claim considering how large and detailed Baldur’s Gate 3 already is, but it also means RPG fans can expect another deep, choice driven adventure with plenty of room for experimentation and replayability.
Right now Divinity is still early enough that there is no release date or even a release year. Larian boss Swen Vincke has said the team is deep in the trenches on the project, and has joked that he hopes to show it off well before 2030 for the sake of his marriage. The studio clearly sees this as a long term, major undertaking.
To get a sense of timing, it helps to look at Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian submitted the original BG3 design document to Wizards of the Coast in summer 2017. The first trailer arrived in June 2019, early access launched in October 2020, and the full release hit in August 2023. That is a long road from concept to launch, but only around sixteen months from first trailer to the first public version.
Divinity might follow a similar pattern with an early access phase, or Larian might change things up. The team has said this will be its biggest project yet, so it would not be surprising if development takes even longer than Baldur’s Gate 3.
A Dark Trailer and a Familiar World
Divinity takes place in Rivellon, the studio’s long running high fantasy setting. If you played Divinity Original Sin or Original Sin 2, you will recognize the mix of humans, elves, dwarves, lizardfolk, and orcs, along with the slightly absurd and often dark sense of humor.
The reveal trailer leans hard into the dark side. It shows a busy summer festival outside the walls of a large medieval style city, full of indulgence, lust, and ritual. In the middle of the celebration, a man is burned alive inside a massive wicker man like structure. That gruesome sacrifice helps summon a nightmarish phenomenon called the Hellstone, a gigantic corpse filled portal hanging over the city.
It is vivid and unsettling, but fans of Baldur’s Gate 3 will recognize the pattern. BG3’s first cinematic focused on parasitic mind flayers and body horror, yet the game itself is, overall, a bright heroic fantasy with some very dark spikes rather than wall to wall grimness. Larian tends to use shocking, high stakes openers as a way to kick off a sweeping adventure and set up the main world threatening crisis.
Because Larian has always played loose with Rivellon’s timelines and geography, it is not fully clear where Divinity sits in relation to the earlier games. It could be a soft reboot, a distant sequel, or simply a big reintroduction of the setting for the wave of new fans who met the studio through Baldur’s Gate 3. The important point is that you should not feel locked out if you have not touched the older Divinity titles.
Do You Need To Play The Old Games?
According to Larian, the answer is no. Divinity is described as a brand new game that does not require any previous experience with the studio’s titles. New players should be able to jump straight in without worrying about lore homework.
That said, if you have played Divinity Original Sin or Original Sin 2, you can expect extra layers of context and continuity. Think of it like moving from Pillars of Eternity to Avowed. The world, gods, and history will feel familiar if you were there for the earlier games, but the story itself is designed to stand on its own.
This approach gives Larian room to reward long time fans with callbacks, returning locations, or sly references, while making sure that Baldur’s Gate 3 players who want to follow the studio to its own universe are not lost.
What Kind Of RPG Will Divinity Be?
Larian has confirmed that Divinity is a role playing game and that it is bigger than Baldur’s Gate 3 in terms of scope, world, or both. Beyond that, the details are mostly speculation, but the studio’s track record offers strong hints about what to expect.
Based on what Larian did with Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, there is a good chance Divinity will include:
- Some form of early access period where systems and story are refined with player feedback.
- Turn based combat rather than action combat. This is already a topic of debate among fans, but turn based systems are a core part of Larian’s modern identity.
- Highly systemic, sandbox style gameplay where physics, spells, and environmental interactions let players create wild solutions and exploits.
- Four player cooperative support so you can run a full party with friends, each making their own choices in conversations and quests.
- Companions with personal quest lines and romance options, similar to the party dynamics in Baldur’s Gate 3.
- Talking animals and plenty of odd magical interactions with the world around you.
On the tone front, the cinematic trailer makes it clear that Larian is not shying away from adult themes. If Baldur’s Gate 3’s infamous druid bear romance set one end of the spectrum, the Divinity trailer lands somewhere around public lizardfolk orgies at a summer festival. Expect a mix of humor, darkness, and mature content woven through a larger heroic narrative.
There is still a lot we do not know about Divinity, from exact mechanics to story focus and release plans. What is clear is that Larian is pouring its post Baldur’s Gate 3 momentum into its own world, aiming to deliver an even bigger, more ambitious RPG. Whether you are a long time Rivellon veteran or you just finished your first run through the Sword Coast, Divinity is shaping up to be one to watch.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/divinity-guide/
