Baldur’s Gate 3 had less crunch than Larian’s previous RPGs, but its director says “you will always have a little bit” of overtime"
“It would be a lie to say we didn’t”
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Crunch on Baldur’s Gate 3 was “certainly less” than what Larian experienced on its other games.
Earlier this week,Baldur’s Gate 3director Swen Vincke spoke at the Digital Dragons conference in Poland, where he outlinedsome of the difficulties he and his team faced during development- includingone brag that he instantly regretted. During a Q+A session after his talk, Vincke was asked if those difficulties had ever resulted in the team having to crunch - work substantial overtime in order to hit deadlines.
“Certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past,” Vincke said in response. “It would be a lie to say that we didn’t. We had things happen that we didn’t foresee.” To help with that, however, Vincke touched on the worldwide studios that Larian had set up in order to ensure 24-hour coverage and prevent any one person from having to work extra to fix a late-night problem (a seventh Larian studio has just been established in Warsaw, Poland, to help with the the team’s two ambitious new RPGs).
Beyond that, however, Vincke said that paid overtime helped soften the blow if anyone had to work late, but that any crunch on Baldur’s Gate 3 might not have been “as long as you would consider crunch.” Offices would be almost empty beyond 8pm at night, and would only be occupied “very, very, very rarely” at weekends."
“We didn’t overly crunch,” Vincke says, “but we did have to do a bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you’re trying to finish something, especially when there’s so much complexity that needs to be brought together.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 sits proudly on our list of thebest games 2023.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
BioWare hopes Dragon Age: The Veilguard brings the studio “back into the conversation as a top game studio” after Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda flops
10 games like Dragon Age to get swept up in when you’re ready to leave Thedas
Millions of Fortnite players watch Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice livestream a concert as part of a rap-themed Chapter 2 Remix that includes Eminem and a tribute to Juice WRLD
