We're now less than three weeks away from the new release date of Baldur's Gate 3. It's one of those games that seemed like it would never happen (the previous installment launched 23 years ago) and, as such, it is carrying off massive hype of countless RPG fans.

　　To be fair, the anticipation isn't merely due to the time distance from Baldur's Gate 2. Part of the reason is that the best cRPG developer (with all due respect to Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity and inXile's Wasteland games) is behind it. Larian Studios more than proved itself with Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2.

　　The latter game earned a 9.6/10 score in Wccftech's review; here's the final summary excerpt from reviewer Francesco De Meo:

　　It's hard to find a game with little to no flaws, but Larian Studios proved that, sometimes, it happens. With excellent story and characters, smart writing, and masterfully crafted gameplay enhanced by the multiplayer modes, Divinity: Original Sin 2 truly deserves a place among the best cRPGs ever released.

　　For Baldur's Gate 3, Larian has leveled up even further. The studio grew immensely, opening new offices across the globe (locations include Gent, Quebec, Barcelona, Dublin, Kuala Lumpur, and Guildford) and expanding its workforce tenfold compared to the days of the first Original Sin.

　　As a result, the game is by far the biggest cRPG ever made in terms of budget and scope, as evidenced by the 170 hours of cinematics and a written script of 2 million words. Various developers and managers industry discussed that in a Twitter thread this week, with Xbox's Senior Technical Program Manager for Accessibility summing up with an eloquent 'It's Rockstar-level nonsense for scope'.

　　Even Larian is a bit unsure whether the effort will be worth it in the end. In an interview with Eurogamer, Swen Vincke said:

　　This depends on how Baldur's Gate 3 will do! I don't know this.

　　This game should not be made, right? It's what people call 'the classic RPG' - although I'd disagree with that - with triple-A production values on top of it. Nobody's actually really done that, so we don't know how big our market is, and we don't know what it's going to do, so we'll have to see. And that will define what we can do afterwards.

　　I know what we want to do - we had six years to sit on other ideas - but we need to see if there's a market large enough to carry this type of game. And if there is, then we can continue innovating in it, and if there's not, then we have to shift gears somewhere. That's something you can't know upfront. [...] Baldur's Gate 3 is a big bet, we've put a lot into it. So if it fails, well, then we'll have to go back to the drawing board and figure it out.

　　That said, Vincke confirmed the game has been doing very well so far, selling around five times as much as Divinity: Original Sin 2 during the respective early access periods.

　　It's vastly more successful than DOS2. You can't compare it. I think it's five-times in early access, if not more. I don't know the numbers by heart - it sounds crazy but it's true. But it's much, much, much more successful than DOS2 was in early access. But that's normal because a lot of people now trust the company, trust the type of gameplay that we bring, so they converted early on.

　　But no, Baldur's Gate 3 is way more successful as an early access title. We will figure out if it's going to be way more successful after, then we'll be happy. But I don't know.

　　Chances are there is a market for this game, then. But is Larian already working on something else? Vincke says yes. It might be a long while until we find out what that is, but at least we'll have a massive cRPG to play in the meantime.

　　Baldur's Gate 3 launches on PC on August 3rd and on PlayStation 5 on September 6th. An Xbox Series S|X version is being worked on, but Larian needs to solve the split-screen co-op technical issues with the Series S version first.