Baldur’s Gate 3 was Larian Studios’ lightning-in-a-bottle moment, one that the studio hopes to recapture with its upcoming Divinity game. While there are other brilliant CRPGs out there, will there ever be a game like BG3 again? Well, according to Astarion actor Neil Newbon, probably not, or at least not for a while.
Talking to fans in the final episode of his latest Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough, Newbon explained that “there won’t be another game like this, I think, either ever or for a very, very, very long time.”
“Look, this is the thing about games, about films, TV, whatever the thing is that it takes so many people all collectively working together to make a project, especially a project like this, which is just so unbelievably ambitious and so utterly, unapologetically ambitious in the best possible way, [and] made with such love, care, and passion,” Newbon said.
“You know, they were spending 8 years—we were there four-and-a-half years—they’d already been doing at least 8 years, if not slightly more since the initial pitch,” the actor continued, also explaining Larian’s continued commitment to major content drops and 23 major updates. Even after the game launched, Larian released modding tools, a native Steam Deck port, and other major additions to the game, giving a decade of their life to the project.
“There won’t be another game like this either ever, or for a very, very, very long time,” Newbon said. “I suggest there’s a lot of things that went right initially to make this game possible. I want to say after being with the game for 2 years, you know, in terms of playing it through, I almost take it for granted, but I remember how mind-blowing it was towards the beginning realising the sheer amount of possibility in it, the way you could play a character, and the way it landed those characters at the end just through writing.”
Newbon called Baldur’s Gate 3 an “amazing achievement”, adding that the game is now “one of my all-time greatest favourite games ever” after finally rolling credits on it so many years after performing as Astarion. “It is, what I would define, in retrospect, a perfect game,” he said, also pointing out the brilliant performances of his co-stars, adding that “there was no AI in this”.
After finishing Baldur’s Gate 3, Newbon is already planning his next Let’s Play series with another Larian game set to take the spotlight—Divinity: Original Sin 2. As the precursor to what Larian would eventually do with BG3, it’s going to be interesting to see how the actor connects to the older—but still brilliant—CRPG.
As for whether there will ever be another game like Baldur’s Gate 3 again, the whole games industry is currently hyper-focused on Larian to perform again with Divinity. After barring Generative AI from the game’s art and writing, there are extremely high expectations for Larian to exceed the quality of BG3, if that’s even possible.
Outside of Larian, Dungeons and Dragons owners Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are keen to produce a Baldur’s Gate 4. However, with BG3’s creators leaving to do their own thing, would a fourth game by a new studio hit the level of quality fans expect? Most fans are unconvinced.
