Nobody Wants to Make Baldur's Gate 4

Hasbro CEO Chris Cox picked up the phone the moment he learned Larian Studios wouldn't be making another Baldur's Gate. On the other end was James Ohlen, co-lead designer of Baldur's Gate 2 and head of Hasbro-owned Archetype Entertainment. The answer was immediate. "I don't, I would fail, and here's why I would fail," Ohlen told Cox, as he recounted in an interview with PC Gamer.

Ohlen's reasoning is blunt and, I think, completely correct. Any studio taking on Baldur's Gate 4 would need to build an engine from scratch unless Larian agreed to license its Divinity 4.0 tech, something Ohlen clearly doesn't see happening. He described that foundation work alone as "at least half a decade of horror." On top of that, whoever ships BG4 would be measured directly against a game that sold over 20 million copies and holds a 96 average on OpenCritic. "Doing Exodus is hard enough, but having to compete against Baldur's Gate 3? That would be insanity," Ohlen said.

This is now a pattern. Larian walked away first, with CEO Swen Vincke saying at GDC 2024 that the team "was going through the motions" on BG3 DLC and a potential sequel before pivoting back to Divinity. Now the original BG2 veterans are declining too. Ohlen has since left the games industry entirely, citing burnout, though his former co-lead Kevin Martens remains at Archetype working on Exodus. I'm struggling to think of another franchise where the IP holder is actively searching for a taker and the most qualified candidates keep saying no.

Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast division has reportedly been exploring remakes of the older Baldur's Gate titles, with Martens involved, but a proper BG4 remains without a developer. Ohlen suggested the right studio would need BioWare's old "us against the world" mentality and a willingness to take the series somewhere entirely new rather than trying to out-Larian Larian. That's a nice idea, but two years after Larian confirmed it was done with the franchise, nobody has publicly stepped up to try.