Responding to a post by a former XDefiant player about how they hadn’t played Call of Duty in almost a year, Rubin wrote about how modern Call of Duty focuses too much on “FOMO (fear of missing out) marketing and EOMM (engagement-optimised matchmaking) matches.” Rubin also wrote about how the franchise would, in the past, focus more on having more player-centric design and would be less focused on engagement-based tactics.

“A lot of games, Call of Duty included just focus on how to make the most money possible out of the player base,” wrote Rubin. “They rely heavily on FOMO marketing and EOMM matches. But I feel like it used to be just more about the quality of the game which would drive players to play. And that means making the game more player centric. i.e. less engagement based tactics and higher quality experiences for the players. Better maps, modes etc.”

“In other words your game should have a high player count because it’s good and people want to play it rather than people playing it because the game has a $250M marketing budget. Everything is just said is very simplified as it would take too long to really go into it. One last simple analogy. Be more like Larian, less like Activision.”

Responding to another post about how even XDefiant made use of FOMO-focused marketing, Rubin said that, while this was true for the free-to-play shooter, the game had little in the way of budget for marketing.

“As a free to play game we did have fomo content although one of the features that was coming was a way to earn a currency by just playing to buy old content,” wrote Rubin. “But as far as marketing we barely had any marketing budget.”

Ubisoft announced that it would be shutting down the servers for XDefiant back in December. As part of its announcement, the company said that it would be keeping the servers for the shooter live until June 3. Currently, XDefiant is in the midst of its final season – Season 3 – which was launched back in December.

As part of its final season, XDefiant got three more playable factions – the Assassins from Assassin’s Creed, the Wolves from Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, and Blood Dragon from Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. While the game was originally meant to get four new maps as part of the season, it ended up getting 13 maps total, 9 of which were meant for release in future seasons.

While it will be going offline in around a month, the game is currently still available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review of the base game for more details.

“We’re kind of working out our plans for the future and what we’re going to be doing with that. And actually, in pretty short order, we’re going to have some stuff to talk about around that,” said Ayoub.

For some context, Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast – the company in charge of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, alongside other properties like trading card game Magic: The Gathering. While Ayoub didn’t expand too much on what kind of future plans were in store for Baldur’s Gate as a franchise, he did mention that a sequel to Larian’s RPG is something he would like to see.

“It’s somewhat of an unenviable position,” said Ayoub. “I mean, we’re not in a hurry. Right? That’s the thing, we’re going to take a very measured approach… We’ve got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We’re starting to think about, okay, yeah, we’re ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we’re going to have some other things to talk about around that.”

Ayoub also spoke about how Hasbro would keep the momentum that Dungeons & Dragons as a property got from the release of Baldur’s Gate 3. Wizards of the Coast, for example, recently kicked off its refresh of the fifth edition rules for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG.

“I’m never one to shy down from a challenge,” he said. “And I think anything that forces us to raise our creative bar, and developers love to have a high bar to go after, and I think we’ve actually seen the team push some really interesting ideas that they’re like, ‘Okay, we need to raise our bar. We need to go bigger on this.’ And things like that. So, I think that’s our hope, right? We would keep raising the bar and everyone just tries to go a little higher.”

Ayoub’s statements are a reflection of similar ones made by Hasbro’s SVP of Digital Strategy and Licensing Eugene Evans, who spoke about the company talking to partners about the future of the Baldur’s Gate franchise back in April 2024. He Evans also spoke about the cast of Baldur’s Gate 3 showing back up in future games down the line, since they were beloved by players.

“Larian created a much loved cast of characters, who were even celebrated by their nominations, the voice actors behind them and the talent behind them was celebrated at the [BAFTAS], and they are now essentially part of D&D canon,” said Evans. “I think it’s too early to express specifics and I think that there’s a much bigger question about how we approach Baldur’s Gate in the future. But I would like to think that all of those characters, for the sake of the fans, could potentially appear in future products.”

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for more details.

While Larian had a storied history with RPGs, with titles like Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel, the studio had to originally go with crowdfunding to finance its previous titles. With Baldur’s Gate 3, however, the studio had a couple of critically successful RPGs under its belt when it approached the current company behind Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast.

With his post on X, Vincke has indicated that the studio will be coming out swinging with its next outing to capitalize on the success it saw with Baldur’s Gate 3.

“Got me all nostalgia – it really has been an incredible journey so far. But the story ain’t over yet” wrote Vincke on X. “Stay tuned. Going to try to skip the dark night of the soul moment though if you don’t mind.”

It is worth noting that the two titles under development at Larian will not be direct sequels to Baldur’s Gate 3. Rather, both RPGs will be based on the studio’s own IP, and will not be tied to Dungeons & Dragons in any way. The studio mentioned this back in 2024, going on to state that it will not be bringing any more narrative content to Baldur’s Gate 3, and that its next game will not be Baldur’s Gate 4.

To help development of its new titles, Larian also opened a new studio in Warsaw, Poland last year. Announcing the new studio, the developer stated that it will be using all the talent it can get to realize the visions behind its two ambitious RPGs.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was released back in 2023, and was a critical and commercial success for Larian. The game also managed to sweep up almost every award it was nominated for. If you want more details about the RPG, check out our review. You can also learn about the next major update here.

Got me all nostalgic – it really has been a incredible journey so far. But the story ain’t over yet. Stay tuned. Going to try to skip the dark night of the soul moment though if you don’t mind. https://t.co/eLSTv3CXb4

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) January 10, 2025

Elaborating further to Kotaku, Douse revealed that the studio plans to have the console releases of the entire game be playable without needing a hefty download as long as players own the physical discs.

“The plan is for it to be fully playable on disc, so that’s the reality we find ourselves in,” said Douse to Kotaku. “Silly us!”

Console games are no strangers to multi-disc releases, even going as far back as the original PlayStation, which featured several multi-disc titles. more modern titles tend to limit themselves to 2 discs, such as the recently-released Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

Typically, games that might find themselves too large for disc releases tend to rely on having the players download a substantial part of the the game’s files even after installing through the discs.

Despite currently being only available digitally, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been tremendously successful for Larian, as well as Dungeons & Dragons IP owner Hasbro. The game is also set to get mod support on all platforms later this year. Check out our review of the game for more details.

https://twitter.com/Cromwelp/status/1763546457104101670

Those who pre-ordered the standard edition of game can start pre-loading on September 4. Pre-ordering the Digital Deluxe edition gets players early access to the game starting on September 2, while standard edition pre-orders will be able to play the game on its PS5 launch day of September 6.

While Baldur’s Gate 3 has been getting quite a few hotfixes for the game’s PC release, the studio has stated that the PS5 release of the game will be incorporating all of the bug fixes and improvements that PC players have seen in the game.

The PC success of Baldur’s Gate 3 has prompted quite a bit of success for the game on the PS5, with reports indicating that the game had become one of the most pre-ordered games on the PS5 earlier this month.

PS5 players, prepare for adventure.

Pre-loads for @baldursgate3 begin August 31st for Digital Deluxe Edition owners.

Not Pre-Ordered? There's still time: https://t.co/9o4pk7qn58 pic.twitter.com/p5mPH8NxFx

— Baldur's Gate 3 (@baldursgate3) August 16, 2023

The studio also gives us a breakdown about various aspects of the game, such as the most popular races and classes during character creation, as well the most popular origin characters picked by players. Going by the charts, Half-Elf and Human lead the pack, with Elf being a close third choice. Githyanki seems to be the least popular choice among players making their own characters.

For class choice, Paladin leads the pack, followed by Sorcerer and Warlock. The least popular class choices are Monk, Druid, and Cleric. Around 93% of all players during the game’s launch made custom characters, with the remaining 7% opting to play as one of the origin characters.

Speaking which, Gale was the most popular origin character for players, followed by Karlach and Astarion. Lae’zel seems to be the least popular origin character for players during the game’s launch weekend.

The studio has revealed further details about how Baldur’s Gate 3 has been played. For example, an early morality choice indicates that 65.1% of players veered on the side of good, while 34.9% chose the evil option. The dog Scratch has been pet over 750,000 times by players, while 1.4 million players used the Speak with the Dead spell, and 2.4 million players used the Speak with Animals spell.

Wrapping things up, 368 players managed to finish Baldur’s Gate 3 during its opening weekend. On the other hand, players have also spent a combined 88 years in the game’s character creation, with nearly 10% of players spending at least an hour with the detailed creator.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on PC, and has seen a considerable amount of success since it left early access earlier this month.

While the official release of the console versions of Divinity: Original Sin 2 is later this year, in August, Xbox One players actually get to play the game early. You see, Xbox has an Early Access program much like Steam, called Xbox Game Preview (while PS4 does not).

So, yes, Xbox One players can play Divinity: Original Sin 2, one of the most lauded RPGs of all time, early- the Game Preview version of the game launches on May 16. You will be able to play the first three hours of the game for free no matter what; you can purchase the Game Preview version to unlock the entire first act, which amounts to the first twenty hours of gameplay. In August, the rest of the game unlocks.

At the very least, making the first three hours available for free should get a lot of players to try it out who otherwise may not have. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is available now on PC, with a consoles release following later this year.

2017 is at an end, and Valve has gone ahead and shared a list of the highest selling games of the year on the platform. The games have been revealed, ranked on revenue, and the list is a healthy mix of the old and the new.

On the new front, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and PUBG are the obvious headliners, along with Ghost Recon: Wildlands. They’re joined by perennial evergreeners, including The Witcher 3, Rocket League, Rainbow Six: Siege, DOTA 2, GTA5, and H1Z1.

You can check out the full list for yourself below- it shows us why PC gaming is a thriving platform for gaming, since it is clear that games enjoy a far longer tail on PC than they do on either Xbox or PlayStation- which, of course, makes it lucrative for publishers.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is out now on PC and Xbox On; Divinity for now is a PC exclusive, though if the first game is any indication, there will be a console port eventually.

• DOTA2
• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands
• Rainbow Six Siege
• H1Z1
• PUBG
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Counterstrike: Global Offensive
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Warframe
• Rocket League
• Divinity: Original Sin II

Larian Studios’ superlative Divinity: Original Sin 2, the follow up to their cult hit 2014 CRPG, has managed to soar past a million copies sold worldwide within just months of its release; this is an especially notable achievement, because a hardcore turn based PC exclusive CRPG with minimal marketing selling that much so quickly is indicative of amazing word of mouth- which is well earned, since the game is utterly fantastic.

Larian shared the news via a funny and tongue in cheek tweet on Twitter, where they evoked a popular Lord of the Rings meme to announce the milestone, before proceeding to thank fans.

If you haven’t played Divinity: Original Sin 2 already, do go ahead and do so- in a year full of fantastic games, it stands as one of the best. If you don’t have a gaming PC, well, chances are it will end up coming to consoles eventually, since the original one did, too.

… at least, not without the best fans in the world! In just a couple of months we've roared past this huge landmark, and it's all down to you! pic.twitter.com/PiimrwV9b8

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) November 28, 2017

Like all RPGs, Divinity: Original Sin 2 has a slew of abilities and skills that your character can learn and use. There’s a lot of them to keep track of- you could either learn them on the fly and by trial and error as you play the game, or you could take the shortcut, and use our guide to learn about them yourselves, and get a head start on the game. The decision is up to you.

TALENTS

• Elemental Affinity – Spells cost 1AP less if you stand in their element
• Glass Cannon – Start each round with maximum AP, but loses resistance to statuses
• Duck Duck Goose – You can evade attacks of opportunity
• Elemental Ranger  – Arrows can deal additional damage
• Escapist – You can escape from all battles
• Pet Pal – Talk to animals
• Comeback Kid – Revives you once per battle
• Mnemonic – Memory attributes get 3 extra points
• Five Star Diner – Food effects doubled
• Executioner – Get 2 AP after dealing a killing blow.
• Picture of Health – Get +3% extra Vitality
• Savage Sortilege – 50% of your critical shot score chance applied to magical skills
• Slingshot – Grenades have an extra 5 meter range
• Stench – Attitude towards you will decrease by 25
• Ambidextrous – Grenades and scrolls cost 1AP less if your offhand hand is unoccupied.
• Arrow Recovery – 33% chance to recover a special arrow
• Far Out Man – Spells and scroll range increased by 2 meters
• Bigger and Better – Get 2 Attribute Points.
• Walk it Off – Reduces all status durations by 1 turn
• What A Rush – Increases your recovery and maximum Action Points by 1 when you are low on health
• Morning Person – Revive at full health
• Opportunist – Enables Attacks of Opportunity
• Parry Master – +10% dodge chance when duel wielding
• Leech – Standing in blood heals you
• The Pawn  – 1 free AP of movement every turn
• Torturer – Statuses you inflict last one turn extra
• Unstable – Deal  100% of your vitality as physical damage to everyone in a 3 meter vicinity
• Guerilla – 40% damage bonus while sneaking
• Ice King  –  +15% Water resistance and +15% fire weakness.

ABILITIES AND SKILLS

• Necromancer – Regain health whenever you damage Vitality
• Aerotheurge – Increases damage done to magic armor
• Scoundrel – Increases movement speed and Critical Damage
• Polymorph – Get another stat point per point
• Huntsman – Increases damage bonus when attacking from high ground
• Warfare – Increases damage done to physical armor
• Summoning – Summon and buff creatures
• Pyrokinetic – Boostsfire damage
• Hydrosophist – Boost healing and armor restoration
• Geomancer – Increases poison damage and physical armor restoration

WEAPON ABILITIES

• Ranged
• Dual Wielding
• Single Handed
• Two Handed

DEFENCE ABILITIES

• Perseverance – Grants Magical and Physical armor
• Retribution – Damage countered to attacker
• Leadership – Gain bonuses for the party