Wizards of the Coast "now talking to lots of partners" about next Baldur's Gate

Think most people are more interested in what Larian is cooking up, the IP barely matters.

Yeah anyone apart from Larian making BG4 is basically fucked. Maybe if they wait 5-10 years and a studio with an established brand comes in, but that isn't what's going to happen.

Prior to BG3 I held BG1&2 somewhere in the top 5 games of all time. BG3 had an impossible bar to meet and they not only met it, but far surpassed it.

I'm genuinely sad at whatever BG4 releases as. It's like someone who loved Diablo 1&2 looking at Diablo 3&4. Diablo 3 was a shell of Diablo 2 and I literally just had to check if Diablo 4 was a released game. Maybe it's fun to someone, but I've completely checked out of the series.

So here's to BG4, BG:TCG, & BG:Mobile, shells of the greatness that came before them.
- ~~Oblivion~~ Obsidian is the only other company that can hold expectations currently
- I loved Diablo 2
  
  fuck what they've done
Exactly. This headline read as "Interested investors want to throw money at someone because BG3 did so well and then demand they release a half finished product so they can meet their quarterly financial date."
- I think people are sort of over wotc ever since the OGL fiasco, plus milking mtg for all it's worth. This is probably a result.
That's not how IP holders think. Their ego ruins our fun.
- I think Paizo would be a good collab. Personally I'd love to see Larian do something with Starfinder.
I'm in the opposite group. I don't care for Larian's games (though I wish them the best) and I was very let down when they made the latest Baldur's Gate.
- Don't think people should downvote you for this opinion, especially with you even being respectful about it.
  
  I had a good time with BG3 (though I'm less high on it than most people), but at the end of the day it's clearly a Larian-game. If you didn't like the Divinity series you probably won't enjoy BG3, and if you had hoped for a BG 1&2 feel, you would probably be a bit let down.
- Not sure why you're being down voted, it's a reasonable opinion to have if you don't like their games. I feel the same about the originals. I tried them and respect them a lot, but they're just not for me.
- Just curious, what was the let down(s) for you? I feel like they were pretty transparent about what the game was gonna be through the whole dev cycle

Idk if anyone could do half the job Larian did.

I have a feeling this will just be a cash grab to milk the IP for as much as they can.
- Imagine if bg4 is a mobile game with micro transactions? Hasbro would totally do it
- The Gates of Baldarian 4: Candy Maze Puzzles
Obsidian could maybe, they did a couple classic BG-style Infinity Engine games in Pillars of Eternity I & II.

...but that's a little bit like a step back/down from what we saw in BG3.
- One huge advantage Larian had was years of experience making games in this genre, and I doubt many other studios have that sort of corporate knowledge. Obsidian may be the only sizable one that comes close. Maybe Beamdog too, as they are responsible for the Enhanced Editions of all the old Infinity Engine games, including some original content.
- What’s up with Obsidian these days? Outer Worlds was a really fun empty box. I enjoyed it like a Fallout game, but after ~30 hours I was done. The hype for that game was setting it up to be “the better Fallout”, but alas, the whole thing just felt rushed and empty to me.
  
  I love their old games and I’m tentatively excited about OW2, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t lost some faith.
I have full faith in Tactical Adventures. Solasta is the closest translation of tabletop D&D to CRPG ever made IMO. All they need is a better than indie budget and permissions to use the full license and content instead of just the SRD.
- The gameplay is good but from what I played, outside of combat, it was a bit lackluster, and rations were a pain when I played. Though it's hard not to compare it to BG3 in that regard. I did like Larian's system to interact with the environment and liquids too that made some battles more dynamic. Maybe there's more of that is Solasta than I saw too, I didn't get far, should give it another go, it has solid combat which is at least half of a good DnD game.
- Solasta was a great solo game. The multiplayer issues killed it for me and my SO.
I think Owlcat makes fantastic dnd games. They made Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Rogue Trader. They could certainly do more than half as good as Larian. However, their big problem with pathfinder games is that they are stupid long and kinda bog down with so so so many items and talents in the late game.
- Almost anyone who works with pathfinder/paizo could have instead worked with D&D/Wizards. Owlcat etc made their choice specifically to not work with Wizards.
Yeah. I'd abandon the series until someone can do a high quality one that's different though it's not a clear comparison.
I think a lot of people could IF they didn't have publishers ruining it to please shareholders.

Old series that has a decent following of mostly niche dedicated fans is left to sit without a new installment for many years.
New title is announced. It's sells gang-busters and flips the community on its head.
Corporate Executives prioritize short term profits and begin planning a quick and easy cash grab. !
Second new installment comes out. It is a shell of the previous title with the soul sucked clean out.
Fans are dissapointed and outside of a small niche following the game series falls into obscurity.
Repeat.

! we are here right now

Look.. Maybe BG4 will be good. But after watching this exact cycle play out over and over again for the past decade I'm not sure how you can expect anything else.

When will the business world realize that anything business majors are given control of turns to shit. Like I know that it's not impossible for a AAA game to be good but I also know that most companies that can handle that kind of a budget are run by people who just think gamers love throwing money at anything labeled "video game", proved by so many out of touch quotes.

Like the BlizzCon "don't you have phones?" showed that Blizzard didn't even realize that their main demographic and shitty f2p phone games didn't have much overlap.

Or EA's "sense of satisfaction" was transparent when they give a paid path to skip a ridiculously tuned grind.

Or Ubisoft's "AAAA" said they hadn't even noticed that "AAA" was starting to be considered synonymous with "shit".

The funny part is that they aren't even wrong about the potential to make a lot of money from video games, it's just not by using business major tricks to extract the maximum short term gains or approaching making a video game by thinking about how to make the most money from it.
- I remember when Disney fired Avalanche from Disney Infinity.... Apparently some guy at Disney learned how cheap it was to make Mobile Games and how much money they made, erroneously assuming that this was where the gaming market was going and how development studios would soon be "Out of jobs" with how "Simple" it was getting....
  
  He was a god damn moron
  
  God, "Do you guys not have phones?" was just.. embarrassing, the fact that they needed to be asked if this was an April Fools joke before the crowd understood what was happening is... yeesh
Baldurs Gate 4: From EA. $99 for the base game. Then you have the season pass with unique characters (squirrels you can kick), as well as character DLCs, then don't forget all the skins. Oh! Did we mention that Act 2 and Act 3 are sold separately?

BG4 is going to be BGOnline 😂

Yeah, but it's a straight terrible port from a mobile game with a solid gacha foundation and Baldur's Gate skins tacked on. Also you need to subscribe and pay a weekly fee to get access to the premium lockboxes that may or may not (spoiler: they do not) give you the characters/skins/whatever that you actually came for. Everything is time-gated unless you pay more of the premium currency to be allowed to grind more for a chance that won't proc anyway unless you go into debt to buy enough crates.
- KONAMI bursts into the room with a raging hard on, yelling KEPT YOU WAITING, HUH?

Let's see ~~Paul Allen's~~ Owl Cat's ~~card~~ Baldur's Gate.

WotC like FEED ME A STRAY DEV
- I have to return some video ~~tapes~~ games
Please no, i want owlcat to work on good things. Things very, very far removed from dnd.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpLQXR116cLVUa1LRY8KS4w

Maybe OwlKitty will do it instead
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  https://www.piped.video/channel/UCpLQXR116cLVUa1LRY8KS4w
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

I’m good. Not really interested in supporting Hasbro after all that’s happened since BG3 released.

So...a new Dark Alliance game is up next?

Don't... Don't give me hope...

Okay. I mean that's fine but I won't be buying shit until after it comes out and has reviews.

BG2 was a huge game too, and it took 25 years for a sequel.

They're not going to pick a studio and crank out bg4 in just a couple years.

I'll be surprised if it takes less than a decade.

WOTC can put the name "Baldurs Gate 4" on whatever they want. They could make a Farmville clone in 2 months and release it as "Baldurs Gate 4" if they want. They own the copyright.

It just won't be good.
- But it'll probably sell decently well.
Isn’t Wizards of the Coast scummy af?

Larian are the studio with integrity, why wouldn’t Wizards of the Coast go for the cash grab?
- 100% BG4 will be a cash grab
- My understanding is that Wizards is mostly pretty good. Its their corpo overlords at Hasbro to watch for
The problem is that Hasbro is desperately trying to make more money from WotC. But fairly recent actions indicate that they don't have players' best interests at heart. They fired all the contacts that Larian worked with. So nobody is left who has even a modicum of insight into how BG3 was done so well.

I fear several cheap cash grabs are in store for us. The first will probably be a quick and dirty DLC that will come out in a year or two.
- Hasbro fired more than half of the people at WotC that created the 4E and 5E rulesets.
Yeah, cranking out another entry to capitalize on BG3's success would be a terrible move. I'm so glad Hasbro/WotC are not known for making terrible moves. That would be so unlike them to trade in goodwill for short-term profits.
- Me too! And I hope the Pinkertons investigate anyone claiming otherwise!
It took less than 2 years to release BG2 after BG1. In the meantime Bioware licensed Infinity Engine to Black Isle who released Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale one year apart.

It took Larian 6 years to develop BG3 after Divinity 2. They moved on to their new game but that engine and assets could be similarily licensed to other studios to churn out some games using similar or simplified formula.
- I believe the engine is larian's