Baldur's Gate 3 opens with a mind flayer implanting a parasitic tadpole in your brain, and it only gets more ambitious from there. This episode explores how Larian Studios, a privately owned Belgian developer once told it lacked the budget and experience to handle the license, adapted the fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons rules into a digital chemistry set with virtual D20 rolls, advantage and disadvantage, turn-based action economies, and environmental reactions like igniting grease or electrifying water.

We trace the history from BioWare's 1998 original and Black Isle's cancelled third game through Swen Vincke's rejected pitch, the frantic hotel-room design document written during the launch of Divinity: Original Sin 2, and a six-year development that Vincke calls their COVID game. Larian grew from about 140 to over 450 staff, closed its ...