Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC isn’t planned yet, thanks to DnD level caps

08.08.2023 - 10:41 / pcgamesn.com / Swen Vincke

If you’re loving Baldur’s Gate 3 and hopeful for some DLC down the line, you’d better reign in those expectations for now, as developer Larian has clarified that it has no plans for the colossal RPG game to get an expansion. While our Baldur’s Gate 3 review evaluates what you can expect with the game right now, with over 100 hours of content to satisfy you, it’s only natural for hits like Baldur’s Gate 3 to raise questions as to what’s next.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has already bucked a few videogame industry trends, launching with no season pass, microtransactions, or commitment to future plans apart from updates and fixes. So after you’ve chosen your Baldur’s Gate 3 class and started exploring the Forgotten Realms, that’s it, the whole game is at your fingertips.

What about potential Baldur’s Gate 3 DLCs or expansions, then? Larian CEO and Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke has sat down with PC Gamer to answer just that question.

“Honestly, we haven’t started on an expansion,” Vincke begins. “[Level 12-20] adventures require a different way of doing things, in terms of antagonists you’re going to have to deal with, which require a lot of development to do them properly.”

As the Baldur’s Gate 3 max level is 12, and 20 is the typical cutoff in the tabletop game of Dungeons and Dragons, naturally questions are raised about if Larian could fill that level gap.

Vincke adds that going up to level 20 with DLC “would make this much more than an expansion in terms of development effort. A lot of DnD adventures are sub-level 12 for precisely that reason. So it sounds like neat, easy expansion material until you start thinking about it and it’s not as easy as one would imagine.”

With tens of thousands of Baldur’s Gate 3 endings, Vincke also notes that if they picked up where the story ended, “you’d have to wait for a long time” to play it. Personally, I could see a sort of side-DLC, similar to Mass Effect 3’s Citadel expansion that focuses on a character-driven story that takes place before the end of the game, working really well here.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is certainly big and diverse enough to not need a single bit of DLC though, and I’d be fine with that, too.

I bet you’ve also got a lot of BG3-based questions right now, which is why we’ve broken down as much as we can about the game. From Baldur’s Gate 3 romance to every Baldur’s Gate 3 quest, we’ve got you covered.