Larian Studios has said that misjudgements of Baldur’s Gate 3‘s potential success are understandable – “there just isn’t any existing data that could have told anyone how [the game] was going to perform”.
In the deluge of leaked documents from Microsoft, it was shown that the company saw Baldur’s Gate 3 as a “second-run Stadia PC RPG” before it was released.
The comments were made in an email from 2022, which resurfaced during a lawsuit between the Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft. The email contained a list of upcoming games that were being considered for Xbox Game Pass.
In Polygon‘s report that embedded the email, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was considered a “crown jewel” whereas Baldur’s Gate 3, Let’s Sing ABBA and Just Dance were denoted “hub” titles. It is not known what “hub” meant, but there is the Xbox Insider Hub that allows players access to previews of anticipated games.
Also, Microsoft expected to part with approximately $5million to enter a partnership with Larian Studios for Baldur’s Gate 3. On the other hand, the term “second-run” may relate to the fact that Larian Studios’ game was originally launching for PC and Stadia simultaneously, and so its arrival on Xbox would have been the second time the game was launched.
Polygon concluded that the company underestimated the critically acclaimed role-playing game though it isn’t completely clear what Microsoft meant by “second-run Stadia PC RPG”.
Larian Studios director of publishing Michael Douse responded by saying “everyone else” had seemingly underestimated Baldur’s Gate 3 too. “Same with [Divinity Original Sin 2],” he explained in a quote to the report on X.
“Comes with the genre, and the way we approach things, and the way we execute things. There just isn’t any existing data that could have told anyone how [Baldur’s Gate 3] was going to perform. We just had to take giant spooky leaps.”
Earlier this month, Baldur’s Gate 3 surpassed Elden Ring to become the highest rated title on PlayStation 5 in the history of the console.
In other gaming news, it was revealed that Elon Musk crashed a Cyberpunk 2077 recording session with a gun and insisted on a cameo in the game.