Are we seriously already talking about DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3? Are we already talking about expanding a game that, as far as I can tell, encompasses the entire sentient experience in a fantasy setting? That’s on people’s minds?
Because apparently folks are already asking developer Larian Studios when there’s going to be an expansion. So far, the developer’s response has been akin to waving at the game and being like, “For the love of God, isn’t this enough?” None of the developers have specifically said that, but you kind of get the feeling it’s annoying to be asked “so when do we get more?” after your team spent 3–5 years making one of the largest games of all time.
Stop it.
We don’t need to talk about Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC yet, and we definitely don’t need to pressure the poor motherfuckers who spent most of their pandemic planning tens of thousands of possibilities, so you could have the option of killing everyone as a story choice. They haven’t announced DLC yet. They don’t have a public roadmap they have to follow for our benefit. The game is good. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m certain we’ve got a complete experience baked in this cake. Shit, I’m pretty sure that there are like ten or eleven complete experiences in there that I’ll never see. We can just enjoy the game as-is. It’s a finished game.
Again, it’s a giant fucking experience. I’m 15 hours in, and I feel like I’ve maybe just finished the tutorial section. I don’t know, because I found out a big person for a big quest just ditched town because I took too long. I guess that’s on me! I was busy dealing with another upcoming genocide. My bad. There’s so much to do. There’s so many people to talk to. There’s so many insane little details to stumble across and miss the first time. It begs for repeat plays.
And, look, I get that developers often need DLC to keep a money pipeline going and help recoup the initial expense of developing a game. It’s often financially necessary to add onto a product to keep a studio afloat. Even outside the realities of a business struggling to figure out how to trick fans into thinking their games are still only $60, interactive worlds are ripe with new stories to tell using smaller writing teams and vaguely similar assets.
That doesn’t mean we need them immediately the moment anything comes out. And while I can’t blame the journalist for asking, one of the biggest problems in games is that we’re all so obsessed with what’s next that we tend to forget the good shit that’s right in front of us. We’re so happy to have this big new shiny object in our hands that we marvel at how it might become bigger and shinier in six months. It’s not the worst problem in the video game world, but it does make it hard to just enjoy the fucking moment.
We’ve all been trained to expect more. When I finished Final Fantasy 16 a couple of weeks ago, one of my first thought was, “Okay. That was certainly a game.” My second thought was, “I wonder what the DLC will be like.” Why? Why would I think that? I liked Final Fantasy 16 enough. It did not need to be as long as it was. In fact, the story has a great endpoint that we blow right past so we drive straight into the biggest console roleplaying game clichés. I don’t want to spoil it but, yes, at some point the big bad does have wings.
To be fair, Square Enix hasn’t blasted out a big plan for FF16’s future either. Right now their strategy for Final Fantasy 16 is to assure fans that it’s actually fun and stockholders that its sales are actually good. But it’s not hard to see some bullshit extra material that will make me “rethink all I know” about the game or something. DLC for roleplaying games usually come in two versions: “Completely changes the ending and negates half of the stakes” and “We thought you might like to know a little more about a character you fucked in this game.”
Expansions and DLC are fantastic and great and you can introduce them to your parents at Thanksgiving, but they also emphasize that fans and developers don’t always consider games a complete experience. Wondering “what’s next” detracts from “what’s now.” It’s the worst final form version of only caring about the end credits scene of a movie. And it puts an insane amount of pressure on a team that’s in the middle of releasing and maintaining a multiplatform, multiplayer, crossplay RPG. Asking about DLC isn’t off limits or something. It’s not morally wrong journalism. It’s just a reminder that this art form seems to exist in a state of anticipation rather than a state of enjoying
If it happens, DLC in Baldur’s Gate 3 will probably be great. Nobody’s saying it won’t be. That’s not my worry here. Larian is a great studio. They know what they’re doing. But we don’t need to ask what’s next the moment we get our hands on the thing that, five minutes ago, was next.