Hasbro, owner of Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast, is looking for potential partners to work on the future of Baldur’s Gate.
Last month, Larian Studios – the developer behind the award-winning game Baldur’s Gate 3 – announced that it will be moving away from Dungeons & Dragons completely despite the overwhelming success of its latest title.
“We’re not going to make new expansions which everybody is expecting,” said Larian CEO Swen Vincke during his GDC talk (via PC Gamer). “We’re not going to make Baldur’s Gate 4 which everybody is expecting us to do. We’re going to move on. We’re going to move away from D&D and we’re going to start making a new thing.”
Nevertheless, Hasbro is still hoping to continue with the franchise and is currently in search of potential partners according to Eugene Evans, senior vice president of Digital Strategy and Licensing for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.
“We’re now talking to lots of partners and being approached by a lot of partners who are embracing the challenge of, what does the future of the Baldur’s Gate franchise look like?” Evans said in an interview with PC Gamer.
Evans added that Hasbro isn’t in a rush to make the next game, but “we certainly hope that it’s not another 25 years, as it was from Baldur’s Gate 2 to 3…”
“But we’re going to take our time and find the right partner, the right approach, and the right product that could represent the future of Baldur’s Gate,” he continued. “We take that very, very seriously, as we do with all of our decisions around our portfolio. We don’t rush into decisions as to who to partner with on products or what products we should be considering.”
In terms of what the next Baldur’s Gate could potentially entail, Evans said that he thinks it’s too early to talk about specifics but would like to see the return of characters from Baldur’s Gate 3, like Astarion, Karlach, and Wyll, saying: “I would like to think that all of those characters, for the sake of the fans, could potentially appear in future products.”
