Swen Vincke Shares First Details About the New Divinity

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke gave an in-depth interview to journalist Jason Schreier, sharing the studio’s future plans and the first details about the next Divinity game. Despite the massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold over 20 million copies according to Vincke, the team has decided to stop working with external licenses and fully focus on developing its own original universes. The goal remains highly ambitious — to reach an entirely new level of quality.

Speaking about the upcoming project, Vincke said the game will retain a foundation familiar to long-time fans while significantly expanding on Larian’s core ideas:

“It will be a turn-based role-playing game with all the elements you’ve come to expect from our previous titles, but taken much further. This time, Larian is truly giving itself complete creative freedom. I’m confident this game will be better than Baldur’s Gate 3. We’re building our own system specifically for the project, and it will be easier to understand than D&D rules.”

Vincke also addressed the topic of artificial intelligence, which is currently a major discussion point across the industry. According to him, Larian uses AI only for supporting tasks and does not allow it to interfere with the creative process:

“We write all the text ourselves, and all roles are performed by real actors. AI is used for brainstorming, preparing presentations, refining concept art, and creating placeholder text.”

The new Divinity is being developed on a completely new engine, which will significantly expand the studio’s technical capabilities. The engine is designed to improve cinematic presentation, introduce modern content streaming systems, and reduce overall development time.

“We used to split cities into sections because the engine couldn’t handle streaming and we couldn’t keep everything in memory. Baldur’s Gate 3 had plenty of technical limitations and workarounds. Fortunately, everything came together, but with more modern technology we could have done much more. The new engine is almost ready, and in my view, three to four years of development is far better than six,” Vincke said.

To support these plans, Larian has significantly expanded its team. The studio now employs around 530 people, allowing multiple quests and content pipelines to be developed in parallel. As with previous projects, the new Divinity is planned to launch in early access.