Chinese gaming giant Tencent is going harder on single-player AAA games as it continues to establish itself as a worldwide gaming presence. Largely known for free-to-play or multiplayer offerings, the game company has claimed its using Baldur’s Gate 3 and other successful single-player titles as a “North Star” for the future.
Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 was a massive hit for the small gaming studio, selling tens of millions of copies and reigniting the CRPG genre. The game has been so successful that Hasbro has struggled to find a new studio to pick up the mantle for Baldur’s Gate 4.
In a rather lengthy interview with The Game Business, Tencent Games VP Yong-yi Zhu specifically noted Baldur’s Gate 3, alongside FromSoftware’s Elden Ring, as the “north star” of Tencent’s future. In recent years, the company has funnelled near-endless amounts of money into new studios, although they also recently laid off the majority of staff from Lightspeed LA.
Zhu explained that they can’t simply create a Baldur’s Gate 3, stating that it takes years of growth and multiple games to craft an experience of that scale and quality. “For us, it’s more about chasing high-quality talent and people that are bringing unique visions, have a very specific vision,” they said. “We love to work with developers that are trying to hone their craft. The studios we cite as our North Stars, like Larian, FromSoftware, they’ve been in a particular genre for a long time and iterating on that genre.”
Zhu claimed that Tencent wants to work with studios of a similar calibre, but also to invest in and create their own studios that can evolve similarly to Larian and FromSoftware. Zhu explained that this can’t be an “overnight success”, adding that “it was multiple Divinities into Baldur’s Gate. It was Demon’s Souls into Dark Souls into Bloodborne and then finally into Elden Ring, which was so big”.
“We want to work with you if you believe one day you can be the category leader in this particular genre,” they continued. “That could be today, two games from now, or three games from now, as long as we see that progress. That is the long-term commitment.”
With that said, Zhu then sets off the alarm bells. Not only do they admit that the majority of Tencent’s output will remain “evergreen live-service” games, but also that they want to reduce development risk by scaling-down teams during pre-production. While cost-effective, that also means scrapping teams between games, whereas titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 are successful because of the learned experience of its team between games.
With this in mind, will Tencent ever be able to have its Baldur’s Gate 3 moment? It’s very rare that any studio can have a moment of that scale, especially not by throwing money at the issue. Wthat’s why no one wants to make Baldur’s Gate 4.
