Larian Studios’ CEO says, “we did have to do a bit of crunch” making Baldur’s Gate 3

Larian Studios’ Swen Vincke opened up about the crunch culture at the studio, acknowledging that the team sometimes “had to do a little crunch” when “things were happening that (the studio) didn’t anticipate.”

In the Q&A session held by Vincke after his speech at the Digital Dragons conference in Poland, Vincke was asked if the team had ever had to go into fits – that is, the term given to overtime extremes that studios force staff to do to prepare a game for release. date – and while Vincke said the team wasn’t forced to crunch “too much”, and was “definitely less on BG3 than in the past”, “It would be a lie to say that we don’t We haven’t crunched at all.

“We didn’t break down too much,” said Vincke (thanks, GR+). “But we had to do a little bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you’re always going to have a little bit of crunch when you’re trying to complete something, especially when there’s so much complexity to bring together.”

Vincke further added that anyone who had to work late was paid overtime — many studios apparently don’t do this — and that “very, very, very rarely” people worked on weekends or after 8 p.m.

Earlier this week, Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios shared the “disappointing news” that its PS5 North America physical deluxe editions have been delayed again, this time until July 2024.

Larian also recently confirmed that his next game won’t be Baldur’s Gate 4, DLC, or anything else related to Dungeons and Dragons… but he did tease that he has other games in development.