Two trailers, one statue at The Game Awards and a handful of interviews later, Larian Studios has made its intentions clear: after the runaway success of Baldur’s Gate 3, the team is going back to its own sandbox — Divinity — and they’re doing it on their own terms.
Swen Vincke, Larian’s founder and the voice most people look to for clarity, put it bluntly in interviews: "We weren't excited doing the D&D thing." That frankness helps explain the studio's move. Baldur’s Gate 3 let Larian show off cinematic narrative chops and reach an enormous new audience, but it also reminded the team what they love about making games in a world they built from scratch.
A trailer that raised eyebrows — but not the ones you think
The Divinity reveal leaned into darker, adult themes, which unsurprisingly sparked chatter online. Vincke shrugged a little at the fuss, telling reporters the trailer isn’t wildly different from what you’d see on HBO or Netflix — a reminder that grim, graphic storytelling lives comfortably in other entertainment mediums. In other words: the trailer is loud, but intentionally so. It’s designed to signal tone rather than shock for shock’s sake.
There’s color to the commentary, too. A late-night interview with Larian’s senior team produced some ribald banter that underlines how relaxed — and occasionally irreverent — the studio can be when discussing creative risks. It’s a useful counterpoint to the polished marketing reel: the people making the game like to laugh while they work, but they also have exacting standards for what ships.
Jump in anywhere — or dig into the history if you want to
If you’re worried you need to have played the old Divinity games to enjoy this new one, Vincke is reassuringly pragmatic: you don’t. The new Divinity won’t require prior knowledge — the studio intends it to be accessible to newcomers who discovered Larian through BG3. That said, references to Original Sin and even the earliest Divinity titles will be present for those who want the full tapestry. As Vincke put it, play the old games “if you really want to know everything,” otherwise they’re optional background reading.
For players who loved Baldur’s Gate 3’s cinematic beats but also appreciated the tactical combat and cooperative freedom of Original Sin 2, Larian recommends revisiting Original Sin 2 — it was, in many ways, the blueprint for what the studio did with BG3. If you’re in it for story and cinematic delivery, however, you can treat the new Divinity as a fresh starting point.
Behind the scenes: ambition meets technical reality
Development isn’t all creative swagger. The studio has acknowledged technical constraints — notably memory and optimization work — that have influenced how Divinity is being built and how much the team wants to polish before open access. Expect some of the same iterative approach Larian used for Baldur’s Gate 3, where early access gave the team room to tune complex systems with player feedback.
Larian’s choice to return to its own IP also speaks to a broader pattern in the industry: studios increasingly balance large licensed projects with original worlds where they can experiment freely. That mirrors other developers’ decisions to prioritize original universes over sequelizing or reusing established licenses — a debate that’s been playing out in the community and across studios.
If you’re curious where the BG3 fandom continues to tinker — and how community ambition keeps the life of a studio’s breakout title going — check out the ambitious fan efforts around Baldur’s Gate 3 mods, like the project aiming to recreate Menzoberranzan in playable form path-to-menzoberranzan-mod. And for a look at why some studios prefer building their own worlds rather than returning to old franchises, Obsidian’s recent stance on original IP offers useful context obsidian-original-ip-over-new-vegas.
Larian’s return to Divinity is both a creative course correction and a statement: the studio enjoyed what D&D let them do, but their heart — and a lot of their creative muscle — lives in Rivellon. Whether that nostalgia will translate to a game that feels contemporary and fresh remains to be seen, but Larian seems determined to make the return worth the trip.