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.
08.12.2023 - 04:45 / pcgamer.com / Swen Vincke / Neil Newbon
Baldur's Gate 3 racked up six awards at The Game Awards today, including Game of the Year, a win Larian founder Swen Vincke tells PC Gamer he didn't expect, even after leaving the recent Golden Joystick Awards with too many awards to carry.
Kicking off the love early in the show was Neil Newbon, who won the Best Performance award for his role as Astarion. Newbon was teary-eyed as he took the stage, thanking his fellow Baldur's Gate 3 actors and specifically calling out Astarion's writer and creator at Larian, Stephen Rooney.
Newbon also thanked the community for their enduring support of the game.
«The community has reached out to so many of us at Larian and said they were seen and they were represented by this game,» Newbon said. «When they lost hope, they felt isolated, and they felt alone, this game brought them together and gave them something to push through.»
The good vibes continued with Baldur's Gate 3's win for Best Community Support. This was one of Geoff's patented rapid-fire awards he sped through to make time for announcements, so there was no acceptance speech. If there had been, I imagine Larian would've talked about how active and passionate the BG3 community has been since launch, flooding my feeds with nonstop fanart, highlights, and geuiniely hilarious memes since August. The crown jewel of BG3's community, if you ask me, is its extremely active mod scene that's been patching the RPG with cool class remixes, new clothing, and godsend quality-of-life features alongside Larian's own post-launch support.
Next up was a hat trick of Baldur's Gate 3 awards announced by Geoff all in the same minute: Best RPG, Best Multiplayer, and Player Voice. I think anyone could have guessed Larian would take the RPG category, but multiplayer was a small surprise for me: BG3 is surprisingly great in co-op, but I wouldn't have guessed it'd beat out Street Fighter 6 and Diablo 4.
But the biggest prize came at the end of the night, when Baldur's Gate 3 took home Game of the Year. Vincke took the stage this time, making a brief speech to thank fans and reflect on the experience of making Baldur's Gate 3 in a pandemic.
«A game like Baldur's Gate 3 isn't possible if you don't have an incredible team working on it,» Vincke said. «The team at Larian spent their hearts and souls for six years on this game, sometimes under very difficult circumstances.
»This was our Covid game. Along the way we lost quite a few people also, so we want to dedicate this to all the people we lost. Especially Jim [Southworth], our lead cinematic artist who passed in the last month."
Southworth, who was diagnosed with cancer in late 2022, was described by his coworkers as an «absolute rock and a wonderful man.»
PC Gamer caught up with
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.
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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.
You might remember Larian CEO and Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke giving a short speech while accepting the Game of the Year Award for BG3. Now he’s taken a second pass online, and delivered a moving statement on behalf of everyone behind the game.
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.
Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke has shared his Game Awards acceptance speech in full, after he was cut short at the ceremony last week.
Larian's CEO and founder Swen Vincke has shared the rough full text of his Game Awards 2023 acceptance speech for Baldur's Gate 3's Game of the Year trophy, after having his thoughts cut short by the event's crowded scheduling, which allotted more time to Kojima chitchat, trailers and celebrity cameos than the actual award-winners.
When an armour-clad Swen Vincke, boss of Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios, accepted the award for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023, he had just 30 seconds before the dreaded “please wrap it up” message ushered him off stage.
A Baldur's Gate 3 player thinks they've found the forge that Karlach mentions in her special epilogue scene.
Baldur’s Gate 3 had a huge night at The Game Awards 2023, winning Game of the Year and then just launching the game on Xbox Series X|S. Surprise!
The Game Awards was once again a pretty terrific celebration of games last night, though the same can't really be said about the people that make them. More than any other year, organizer and host Geoff Keighley has come under fire for rushing award winners through their acceptance speeches, but he claims that "no one was actually cut off" during the show.