Fraser Brown, Online Editor
Last week: Enjoyed blissfully being unaware that a TV sequel to Baldur’s Gate 3 was in development.
This week: Stopped being blissfully being unaware that a TV sequel to Baldur’s Gate 3 was in development.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is too big for Hasbro to leave alone. We already knew that, despite Larian moving onto greener pastures, Wizards of the Coast and its owner wanted to do a sequel, and we’ll almost certainly see a sequel. But first we’re getting a TV show, and I can’t help but think that’s a big mistake.
Any direct sequels, then, should take that into account, respecting and reflecting the potential choices we made in its predecessor, allowing players to contort the world so it fits their previous personal adventure. This is impossible for a linear TV show.
I’ve enjoyed several playthroughs of BG3, but generally I consider my first run of a game like this to be my canon adventure. A half-drow bard led a group of heroes to defeat the absolute, sacrificing himself to save everyone by becoming a mindflayer. Everyone lived.
For you the story might be different. Maybe Gale is simply the name of the person who originally owned the bloody hand you keep in your inventory, rather than a problematic BFF. Maybe the destroyer of the Absolute previously helped slaughter defenceless tiefling refugees rather than rescuing them. BG3 isn’t a singular story—it’s thousands of them.
It’s going to tell a concrete story with our characters, and I feel really weird about that.
HBO ain’t gonna use all these stories. It’s going to pick one. A new canon that turns the stories we created over hundreds of hours into flights of fancy.
But who cares? Just as the choices you made don’t undermine the ones I made, why shouldn’t HBO be allowed to present its own canon? No, I can’t trick my brain into believing that. HBO isn’t just hosting a let’s play or a tabletop adventure, it’s going to tell a concrete story with our characters, and I feel really weird about that. I’m protective of them.
When I visited Larian just as it was about to have a massive conference to determine the direction of its next game, lead writer Adam Smith told me that he did feel a bit strange about losing control over the characters he and his colleagues created. He spent years crafting them, but now he had to let them go, let Hasbro do whatever it wanted with them. That’s how I feel now. We’re all BG3’s authors, and now we’ve got to let some TV writers tell us what actually happened.
Look, it could be amazing. The last D&D film was an absolute delight, and the age of every videogame adaptation being a stinking pile of drek is long behind us. But I can’t help but feel like my favourite RPG is being utterly wasted on this unsuitable endeavour. Save it for BG4, where we can write our own stories again.
It just reeks of cynicism. From what little we admittedly know, the show is going to follow a new party of adventurers, but familiar faces from BG3 will be making an appearance, lending a hand or getting in the way. They won’t be the main characters. This won’t be their story. So what’s the point? Leave them alone to enjoy retirement. But of course that can’t happen, because this isn’t just a D&D show (which I would have absolutely preferred). BG3’s immense popularity is the driving force behind this project, so our beloved party must be sacrificed on the altar of cynical tie-ins.
Since the announcement yesterday, I’ve wondered if I’m being a bit silly. A 40-year-old man who’s getting all in a tizzy about someone writing a story based on characters I played in a videogame. Don’t I have better things to worry about? But BG3 matters a great deal to me. And I know it matters just as much to many of you. Larian made something spectacular, and then gave it to us. These characters and stories mean something. I don’t invest this much time in anything that doesn’t.
It’s a testament to what Larian achieved.
It’s a testament to what Larian achieved. I don’t, for instance, care what Amazon does to pre-existing Fallout characters or lore. That’s largely down to Fallout being more of a messy sandbox, with protagonists that never end up feeling like fully-formed characters and companions we have less control over.
Despite this, Amazon made the smart move to make a show that only overlaps a little with the games, set during a period we haven’t played through. It managed to tell a story that never undermined our stories. That’s how you make a TV show out of a non-linear game.
Larian head honcho Swen Vinke says Craig Mazin (of Chernobyl and The Last of Us fame) has already reached out and a studio visit may be on the cards. So at least Larian will be somewhat involved. And there’s no denying that Mazin is very talented: Chernobyl is one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever seen on TV, and The Last of Us is a top-tier adaptation… of a linear game.
Vinke also defends the direct sequel approach by saying, “The endings of BG3 were created so they could serve as narrative soil for new adventures.” Which is fair, but I’m pretty sure Larian thought those new adventures would be videogames and tabletop romps, where players once again get to craft their own stories.
I’m with Larian’s publishing lead, Michael Douse, here. He’s also been tweeting about the show, and while he certainly wasn’t bad mouthing it, he did say, “I genuinely don’t think anyone can trump our writers.” I really don’t want to see someone else’s take on my demonic wife Karlach.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is just too much a product of Larian’s history and style for me to imagine anyone else taking the reins, right down to the default protagonist name being inspired by Swen Vincke’s beloved dog, who passed away during development. Gustav the dog also appears in the game, and it was the codename for BG3 prior to announcement. Hasbro might own the game, but this is Larian’s baby, and we are its adoptive parents. Yes I’m getting extremely sentimental.
So yeah, I’m kinda dreading this. But of course I’m going to watch it.
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