Larian Studios founder and CEO Swen Vincke has shared a lengthy insight into the development of the new Divinity game, explaining in fairly nebulous terms that it’s reached a critical point where the developers can “sense that a game is coming alive.”
This is very exciting for fans of the prestige studio, who have been waiting with bated breath for news on its next RPG since Divinity was revealed in December. Again, Vincke’s words are vague and explicitly geared toward other game developers, but it sounds like the veteran developer had a lightbulb moment when speaking to Larian writing director Adam Smith.
“He just spent a week running through various permutations of one particular situation, tweaking the words, and had plenty of ideas,” said Vincke in a tweet. “The things he said made sense but it wasn’t that which struck me. He often has good ideas. Instead, it was the energy level he was at.
“It made me happy because it felt like I had returned to a good place after being away for a while, seeing that all my favorite people and spots were still there together with a whole bunch of new ones, waiting for me to explore.”
We don’t know much about Divinity right now that can’t be gleaned from its gruesome announcement trailer. We know it’ll be a brand-new standalone title bigger than Baldur’s Gate 3; we know there will be more interactions between companions; and we know it won’t have AI-generated penises. Not exactly meat and potatoes stuff, which is what makes this tweet from Vincke especially clarifying. Vincke said the game is still “very moldable,” but that he’s officially confident it’ll be a good game.
“I’m talking about being in that stage of development where there is a lot that is still rough or missing, but where you sense that a game is coming alive,” he wrote. “Something was created out of nothing, and you now get to experience what it feels like, knowing that things are still very moldable and that from here onwards, it can only improve. It’s a good moment in the life of any game. And it’s one I expect many developers recognize.”
Even as a non-game developer who occasionally writes things unrelated to work, I can relate to what Vincke is saying here. There’s a point in the creation of a thing, a video game, a book, a poem, a GamesRadar+ news story, where things seem to click into place. You can start to see the full picture come into view, even if the finer details are still being worked out. Well, that’s what I think he’s saying, anyway, but I should let him do the talking.
“As our discussion flowed in the direction of the arcs of one of our antagonists and we started discussing micro-details, I was saying to myself – yeah, this is good,” added Vincke.
