It's interesting how the wheel of time turns. Way back in 1998, Baldur's Gate was credited with single-handled reviving the CRPG genre. Its fortunes have waned somewhat since then, but the past few years have seen a resurgence of interest in the style, with games like Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and most recently, Pathfinder: Kingmaker. And it might be possible that Baldur's Gate will be a beneficiary of the revival this time around.
The evidence—which, to be fair, is more of an insinuation—comes to us courtesy of a tweet from inXile Entertainment boss Brian Fargo.
I happen to know who is working on BG3 😉October 4, 2018
The tweet was a response to a reference to a Rock, Paper, Shotgun story from 2012, in which Beamdog, the studio that made the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions and the Siege of Dragonspear expansion, said that making Baldur's Gate 3 was its long-term goal.
"We’re totally thinking Kickstarter. It just makes so much sense and solves so many problems," the studio said at the time. "I think what Brian [Fargo] is doing with Wasteland is very interesting.
But Beamdog told PCGamesN that it's not working on the game, and Larian shot down an entirely unsubstantiated RPG Codex rumor that it had acquired the Baldur's Gate license. As for Fargo, he declined to comment further, saying in an email only that he "really should not say more."
I'd very much love to play more Baldur's Gate, but I can't help thinking that maybe it's best left alone. The Sword Coast is a brilliant setting, and it's hard to beat a "real" D&D experience, but as Siege of Dragonspear demonstrated, times have changed, and living up to those expectations is a tough trick to pull off.
