Trademarks revealed that Larian Studios’ Divinity was the statue hyped for weeks at The Game Awards, but nothing could prepare us for the trailer itself. Even those accustomed to the brutality seen in Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2, never mind Baldur’s Gate 3, were taken aback.
As many try to figure out what’s going on and how this ties into previous games, there are those praising Larian for pushing the envelope and not trying to “sanitize stories to make them more palatable.” Michael Douse, director of publishing at the studio, responded to this on Twitter, noting that “treating the audience with a level of intellectual respect” emerged from “a lot in planning.”
“It isn’t about trying to shock them. It’s about trying to match their powers of comprehension so that it resonates. We know people are capable of appreciating a three-dimensional world.”
The fact that this isn’t a new Original Sin but something else entirely has many speculating whether Larian could once again rely on a turn-based combat system or go real-time. Either way, Divinity will be the developer’s biggest project to date, even surpassing Baldur’s Gate 3.
When it will be released is a different matter, especially since Larian is a fan of releasing games into early access first. Original Sin 2 spent only a year before launching in full, but Baldur’s Gate was a three-year process (and still required patching for optimization issues). As always, time will tell because it may be a while before Larian is ready to spill the beans on Divinity.
