En av 2023 allra största titlar var Baldur's Gate III. Spelet fick lysande recensioner och har sålts i över 20 miljoner exemplar. Men långt innan Larian Studios gjorde den tredje delen till ett världsfenomen så försökte andra utvecklare skapa det. Trent Oster som är en av de före detta grundarna till BioWare och nu leder studion Beamdog berättar;
"We could not convince people to fund Baldur's Gate 3"
Först försökte Black Isle-studion, sedan Obsidian och sedan Osters egna studio Beamdog. Han arbetade själv på originalet och redan 2014 fanns planerna på att göra Baldur's Gate III. De presenterade sin vision för spelet för Wizard of the Coast. Oster säger; "Our Baldur's Gate 3 wasn't as big picture as what Larian pitched. Obviously, we were doing it at a much smaller scope. It wasn't going to be a $100 million game. I think we were pitching it in the $20 million range."
Spelet skulle också anamma en annan typ av strider. Istället för turbaserat skulle det vara i realtid med möjligheten att pausa. Oster förklarar: "At its heart, real-time with pause is a compromise. It's allowing things to flow until the moment you get worried, and then you need to pause it. And the pausing allows you to take the time to make those decisions and execute at a higher tactical level. But because you can pause, the entire game has to be balanced around the fact that you could pause at any time. Which then forces you to pause all the time. So it's a sticky mess."
Men något spel fick inte Beamdog göra och Oster avslöjar varför: "It came down to funding. All the companies out there were like, 'It's a singleplayer RPG, it's not going to do that big in numbers, and Wizards owns the IP. So why are we spending our money to increase the value of their IP? Why don't we do our own IP?'"
Så, hur känner utvecklaren själv över Larians enorma succé med spelet?
"I don't really get jealous about things. I'm like, 'Hey, you guys had the same opportunities we had, but you just happened to have a bunch of capital behind you that allowed you to roll in on it. And then you had enough capital that you're able to execute at a very high scale, and you were able to pay the costs of chasing the vision that you had.'"
Källa: PCGAMER
