Baldur’s Gate 3 director shares full Game Awards speech, and it’s moving

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Baldur's Gate 3 has claimed the Game of the Year award in the 2023 Steam Awards, along with the crown for Outstanding Story-Rich Game. It probably would have won even more, but the Steam Awards rules limit games to nominations in a maximum of two categories, presumably to avoid any across-the-board ass-kickings.

Before its release, promised to include 17,000 different endings — but does it really? There's undeniably a ton of player choice and variation in the game. There are even hundreds of contingencies and failsafes in case players try to break . It wouldn't be too much of a stretch at all to say there are thousands of different ways its story can play out, but 17,000 endings is an entirely different kind of claim.

Minthara is definitely one of Baldur's Gate 3's spicier companions, and a firm fan favorite for those that enjoy a little bit of bloodshed in their RPGs. Back at launch, you couldn't actually recruit Minthara without slaughtering a bunch of Tieflings (or turning her into a sheep), and while a recent patch has allowed players to not have to make that choice anymore, it's still very clear that she isn't a particularly pleasant person.

Having logged somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 hours (not accounting for my shameless overuse of save scumming), I feel like my playtime pales in comparison to pretty much everyone else playing Baldur's Gate 3. And even so, principal narrative designer Lawrence Schick expects the RPG to continue yielding new discoveries, including by the developers themselves, for literal years to come.

The cast of Baldur's Gate 3 has evolved over the game's Early Access period and beyond—Wyll in particular had a whole rewrite between the game's conception and its full release. Whether it's whole storylines shifting or just toning down Gale's accidental thirstiness, finding the core of a character in a story this large is bound to be complicated.

Baldur's Gate 3 developers have decisively shut down speculation surrounding The Emperor.

If you’ve been holding out hope that Baldur’s Gate 3 might find its way onto PC Game Pass in the future, I’ve got some bad news for you: it’s very unlikely to happen.

The Game Awards has come and gone again, with 2023's show proving somewhat contentious, depending on who you ask. Something that became increasingly apparent as the show progressed was the pressure winners appeared to be under to wrap things up. Even Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke, who managed to snag Game of the Year with Baldur's Gate 3, appeared to be whisked off the stage after around 30 seconds, surprisingly spry in a suit of armour.

Swen Vincke, the director of Baldur’s Gate 3 and CEO of Larian Studios, has spoken out about the role-playing game’s lack of Xbox Game Pass release, saying that it was a decision made «from the get-go.»

Larian Studios has released a new hotfix for Baldur’s Gate 3, which brings Patch 5 and its features – like the new Epilogue and Honour Mode – to Mac players. There are also fixes for various issues, starting with a potential crash that could occur in Honour Mode when trying to load a save file.

The Game Awards were a week ago, and it seems like many are still talking about the event, not because of some of the big reveals that were made there but because of the various instances of the show ignoring the reason it was there and dissing the people who won the awards. We’re not being harsh here, far from it. The best example of this is when Larian Studios won “Game of the Year” for Baldur’s Gate 3. The title went from a game that only some knew was coming to one of the best titles of the year, the most critically acclaimed title of 2023, and a game that gave players many “feelings.” If you get our drift.

Baldur's Gate 3 director and CEO of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, has shared his full speech for winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023.