Did Larian just draw a line in the sand on AI? Sort of. In a wide‑ranging Reddit AMA this week the studio behind Baldur’s Gate 3 lifted the curtain on pieces of its next big RPG, Divinity—some firm commitments, a few tantalising teases, and a clear effort to calm a controversy that followed its initial comments about generative AI.
The headline: art and writing stay human
CEO Swen Vincke was blunt: “There is not going to be any GenAI art in Divinity.” After earlier interviews sparked confusion about whether Larian had used AI to generate concept art, the studio decided to entirely remove generative tools from the concept art pipeline to avoid doubt about origins. Writing director Adam Smith went further: Larian will not use text generation for the game’s dialogues, journals or other writing—experiments produced results he described as wildly below the studio’s standards.
But the studio isn’t banning AI across the board. Vincke said Larian will continue experimenting with machine learning to speed up internal iteration—so long as any generative model used to produce in‑game “creative assets” is trained only on data the studio owns and consents to. Machine Learning Director Gabriel Bosque gave a concrete example: ML is already being used in the cinematics and animation pipeline to clean and retarget motion using Larian’s own data. Crucially, actor agreements explicitly forbid using recorded performances to train AI voice models for the game.
Systems, size, and a new engine iteration
Larian says Divinity is being built by roughly 500 people—up from about 411 at the end of BG3—though growth has slowed because the studio believes it has most of the team in place. The game runs on Larian’s in‑house engine, with what developers call “significant changes” to support new mechanics and higher production values while letting the studio iterate rather than rebuild from scratch.
Design leads teased a brand‑new combat economy and progression system inspired by lessons from Divinity: Original Sin and Baldur’s Gate 3. One welcome return: handcrafted loot. After years of randomized item drops in the Original Sin games, Larian plans to handcraft magic items much as it did in BG3, aiming for clarity and intentionality over chaotic RNG.
The studio also confirmed it’s keeping mod support and will ship co‑op at launch, with modders free to expand player counts beyond the final party size. On the control front: native keyboard‑movement schemes like WASD will not be available out of the box, meaning modders may again be pressed into service for players who prefer that style.
Little things players have been shouting about
A few throwaway answers turned into big community reactions. Head of design Nick Pechenin hinted there’s something they finally get to do in Divinity that “stared you right in the face” in previous games—players immediately guessed swimming, given the beachy starts of DOS1, DOS2 and BG3. The camera will feel familiar to BG3 players, described as a hybrid between top‑down and third‑person, and Larian says there’s no technical barrier to letting players “look at the sky” if design calls for it.
The magic‑armor split from DOS2 will not return; Pechenin promised protection mechanics that don’t force you to wait to use signature skills. And yes, romance is back—with Vincke cheekily flagging that “lizard romance” looks likely to be popular.
Tone, companions, and the world
Divinity is in the same continuity as previous games but stands alone narratively. Writing director Adam Smith framed the game as darker and more grounded—there are folk horror vibes in the trailer—but stressed the world will still deliver tonal variety: laughs, shocks, moments that frighten and delight. Larian also wants deeper interactions between companions, something critics felt BG3 did well between player and companion but less so between companions themselves. Senior writer Kevin VanOrd said the ambition is banter plus genuine inter‑companion relationship arcs.
Platforms, modding and portability
Larian will try to make Divinity work on Steam Deck, given BG3’s strong performance on Valve’s handheld. The studio also said it would “certainly consider Switch 2” as a platform—an increasingly attractive target as Nintendo’s next‑gen hardware builds momentum and third‑party support grows[/news/nintendo-switch-2-games-release-plan]. For those who loved tearing BG3 apart with mods, Larian reiterated plans for mod tools and even hinted modders could expand co‑op limits. That active community is already tackling massive projects; modders and players continue to reshape BG3’s legacy in ambitious ways[/news/path-to-menzoberranzan-mod].
The practical line: where AI will and won’t touch Divinity
To summarize the studio’s stance without repeating their exact phrasing: concept art and game text will be human‑created; ML will be used where it speeds up repetitive, mechanical tasks (animation cleanup, retargeting, tooling); and any generative assets that make it into the game would be produced only from models trained on Larian‑owned data. Actor recordings are off‑limits for voice model training. That’s an attempt to balance efficiency gains from ML with ethical and creative concerns raised by the community.
There are still things Larian won’t discuss publicly yet—specific races, classes, and when we’ll see playable footage—but the AMA left plenty for fans to parse: handcrafted loot, co‑op at launch, deeper companion relationships, and a clear line drawn around concept art and writing. The next big question is when we’ll get to actually play any of it. In the meantime, the studio’s answers have at least given players a sense of the contours of Divinity’s world—and how Larian intends to build it.