Baldur's Gate 3 devs feared it was "going to break down" at launch

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Baldur's hate

Karlach speaks to Tav about murder
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Despite Baldur's Gate 3's resounding success with critics and fans alike, the game's creative director, Sven Vincke, revealed in a recent interview that the folks at Larian Studios weren't initially confident that the RPG would be a hit. 

In an interview on the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel Vincke spoke about his team's anxieties surrounding potential bugs. 

"We were worried it was going to score 6/10, 7/10, there's going to be a bug, something's going to happen, it's going to break down, everyone's going to hate it," said Vincke. "So that was literally our mentality going in, knowing that the content was good."

Though it's easily one of the best RPGs of recent years, Baldur's Gate 3 did have plenty of bugs at launch, including one that made your party companions far more romantically forward than intended, this didn't prevent the game's imaginative storytelling, emphasis on player choice, and stellar voice acting from shining through. 

Elaborating on his fears going into launch, Vincke said "It's a very big game, and so we know that stuff can go wrong. Although the game usually has a way of settling back on its feet. So we didn't expect it to go this well, we didn't expect that players were going to react so strongly to it."

The party explore the underdark

(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Though none of the game's bugs was egregious enough to dampen Baldur's Gate 3's success, Larian Studios has been rolling out a steady stream of patches and hotfixes since release in order to get the game running more smoothly. 

Speaking on how the team had been able to roll out updates so quickly, Vincke had much to say. "We set up our studio so it can work 24 hours. We have our studio in Malaysia, our studio in Europe and then we have our Canadian studio, so we can basically pass on work... this means that, if somebody in Europe made a feature, by the next day they'll know if it worked or not because it went through QA [somewhere else]."

Thanks to this efficient system for distributing workload, Larian Studios has been able to offer regular updates at speed, ensuring that, when a bug is reported, the studio can promptly react. "That allows us to be very reactive to what we're seeing in the community", concluded Vincke - a quality that has likely done wonders for the RPG's continuing popularity.

Want to get more from Larian's hit RPG? Our guides to how to respec in Baldur's Gate 3 and the best Baldur's Gate 3 classes have you covered.

Cat Bussell
Cat Bussell
Freelance contributor

An editor and freelance journalist, Cat Bussell has been writing about video games for more than four years and, frankly, she’s developed a taste for it. As seen on TechRadar, Technopedia, The Gamer, Wargamer, and SUPERJUMP, Cat’s reviews, features, and guides are lovingly curated for your reading pleasure.

A Cambridge graduate, recovering bartender, and Cloud Strife enjoyer, Cat’s foremost mission is to bring you the best coverage she can, whether that’s through helpful guides, even-handed reviews, or thought-provoking features. She’s interviewed indie darlings, triple-A greats, and legendary voice actors, all to help you get closer to the action. When she’s not writing, Cat can be found sticking her neck into a fresh RPG or running yet another Dungeons & Dragons game.