Baldur’s Gate 3 will get official mod support in an upcoming patch, which Larian CEO Swen Vincke said will be the moment it’s rolled out to players.
Speaking at the An Evening with Baldur’s Gate 3 BAFTA after the game picked up several wins at this year’s awards, Vincke spoke about the game’s development and Larian’s long-term support.
“One of the big things for us that we’re really working on now is the ability to modify players [Baldur’s Gate 3] themselves, because then they’ll be able to make their own stuff,” Vincke said. “And I think that’s going to be the point where we say, ‘okay, now it’s all yours.'”
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He admitted that the team had not yet finished developing mod support and that it was “hard to make it work”. However, the release of the update won’t mean the end of support entirely, but “you’ll see the level of support reduced to really critical bug fixes” and for now, “we’re still working as if the game just came out. “.
When asked if he was looking forward to this “last moment of handover”, Vincke answered with an emphatic “yes”.
“We’re working on our new thing, we’re super excited about the new games,” he continued. “We are also creative souls, we don’t want to do the same thing over and over again, we really want to move forward and do new things.”
We already know that it’s likely that Larian’s next game will be released in early access, as previously stated by publishing director Michael Douse.
Vincke went on to speak at BAFTA about the importance of Early Access for the development of Baldur’s Gate 3.
“The biggest thing that came out was that it allowed us to course-correct,” Vincke said. “We made mistakes and the players told us ‘this is a mistake, you shouldn’t do this’.
“We try to listen and do as much as possible where we think it makes a lot of sense. So I think that was key to the success of BG3.”
But how do developers know what feedback is really useful? “A lot of it is about feeling,” Vincke said, admitting that some elements can be analyzed through data. “At the end of the day, it’s really how I feel about the game as a player. I think if you do it any other way, you’re just going to be paralyzed, you’re not going to be able to do anything. If you try to do it in front of a committee, then it’s going to be the most mediocre stuff, which you can have. And then it’s actually very easy, you just have to hope that it’s a game that other people want to play.”
He added: “You also have to consider that there are many, many people in the universe with many, many opinions. So it’s impossible to please everyone. You don’t necessarily always have to listen to the majority if you really believe what’s inside the game.”
So is early access the future of game development? At the very least, Vincke said he would “highly recommend” it, but admitted that four years of Early Access was “actually quite a long time” as players can get tired during that time.
He continued: “You really shouldn’t approach it with an attitude of ‘oh, it’s just an early approach’. There are players who play it, who don’t care. So you should treat them with respect.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 won five awards at this year’s BAFTAs, including Best Game. A recording of Dinner with Baldur’s Gate 3 will be on the BAFTA YouTube channel soon.
Larian recently opened a new studio in Poland as the development of his next project takes place.