While Baldur’s Gate 3 is blazing a trail for RPGs still to come after an incredibly successful 2023, it owes quite a bit to the old-school RPG series Ultima, which isn’t actually out of the realm of possibilities for a future Larian project.
The Ultima series, originally developed by Origin Systems and creator Richard Garriott, is considered to be a seminal franchise, and it commands a lot of interest and nostalgia from Larian founder Swen Vincke. Vincke and the Baldur’s Gate 3 team have not been shy about their affection for the Ultima series, specifically Ultima 7. Speaking to PC Gamer magazine, Baldur’s Gate 3 writer Adam Smith says “the thing about Ultima for me was, 4, 5, and 6 I absolutely love, but 7, it might be my favorite game.”
Earlier this year, Vincke discussed how Ultima was one of three household RPGs Larian had its eyes on before landing on Baldur’s Gate 3. While the love for Ultima is clear, what Larian could do with the franchise was a challenge. Ultima’s Virtue System and creative problem solving are worth exploring according to Smith, but are less novel today.
“What if you have to try and find peaceful solutions?” he asks. “That’s really interesting, but that happens across the board in RPGs now, so it’s not as interesting a question as it was.” It’s a problem the team has also bumped up against when trying to make a new RPG that feels meaningfully distinct from Baldur’s Gate 3 – what hasn’t been done before?
While we know that Larian’s next two projects are original properties, not Ultima or Baldur’s Gate 4, Vincke isn’t ready to close the door on Larian working on Ultima in the future. “Never say never,” he says. Vincke goes on to give a cryptic tease of another developer he would love to work with, noting that “I can’t tell you who, but he’s a big Ultima fan, so you never know.”
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