Larian Studios kinda knocked it out of the park with Baldur's Gate 3—and while it'll be leaving Dungeons & Dragons for some time, I'm nonetheless hyped beyond belief to see what Swen Vincke & Co. are cooking.
It's been known that Larian's tackling two projects since April, as per a Steam community update shared by founder Swen Vincke, but he noted that it was "still early days". While I wouldn't think Larian'd tease and then ding-dong ditch in such a fashion, it wouldn't be the first time an early promise turned out to not be feasible.
But it really looks like it's full steam ahead for Larian—as per a recent tweet made by the developer announcing the opening of a studio in Warsaw, Poland: "With two very ambitious RPGs now starting development, what better way to see our visions realised than by growing the team and opening a 7th studio in the heart of Poland’s lively gaming scene!"
In a press release, Vincke adds: "Visiting [the Game Industry Conference in Poland] last year confirmed what I'd been thinking for a while—there's a lot of talent here and a lot of devs who think like us. On top of that, many of them want to work on RPGs so it's a match made in heaven. Our plan for the Polish studio is very simple. Build a team that can [[link]] work on our two—very ambitious—new RPGs and enjoy the fruits of their labour. We're a very bottom-up company so I'm eager to see what new things they'll bring us. I think it'll work really well."
In case you were still under the impression that Larian Studios was some tiny indie dev—yes, that's [[link]] studio number seven, making it in actuality a very large indie dev. As Vincke himself explained back in September, Larian Studios leverages having several different studios around the world by placing them in different time zones. In his words:
"We have studios in Malaysia, we have them in Europe, we have our Canadian studio—so we can basically pass on work … that means if somebody in Europe made a feature, by the next day they'll know if it worked or not because it went through QA, or vice-versa." According to the studio's website, it currently has over 300 developers working around the world, a [[link]] number that's set to only grow.
As to whether this means we'll be getting two Larian games for the development time of one—that's maybe less likely. Games, especially the mammoth RPGs that Larian tends to create, typically take years to craft. A studio having two projects on the go doesn't mean it's planning to release them side-by-side.
One of Larian's RPGs, such as the one Vincke said he'd got the first act all figured out for, might be further along in terms of development. Until more details emerge, we can only speculate—on the plus side, considering the studio's penchant for Early Access success, we likely won't have to wait until either game's finished to get our hands on them.