It's been a year and a half since the release of *Baldur's Gate 3*, and fans are still diving into their second, third, seventh, and even tenth playthroughs. With developer Larian Studios stepping away from the series, the future of *Baldur's Gate* now rests in the hands of Hasbro. Fortunately, it seems we won't have to wait long to learn about the franchise's next steps.

During a conversation with IGN at the Game Developers Conference, Dan Ayoub, Hasbro's SVP of digital games, revealed that there is significant interest in *Baldur's Gate* following Larian's departure. "We're kind of working out our plans for the future and what we're going to be doing with that," Ayoub stated. "And actually, in pretty short order, we're going to have some stuff to talk about around that."

While Ayoub didn't specify whether this "stuff" would be a new *Baldur's Gate* game or something like the previous crossover with *Magic: The Gathering*, he expressed a desire for a *Baldur's Gate 4*. However, he acknowledged that creating such a game would take time. "It's somewhat of an unenviable position," he said. "I mean, we're not in a hurry. Right? That's the thing, we're going to take a very measured approach... We've got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We're starting to think about, okay, yeah, we're ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we're going to have some other things to talk about around that."

Ayoub also highlighted the immense pressure to ensure the next *Baldur's Gate* meets high expectations, which also influences other Dungeons & Dragons-related projects, such as the game announced by Hasbro last year. "I'm never one to shy down from a challenge," he said. "And I think anything that forces us to raise our creative bar, and developers love to have a high bar to go after, and I think we've actually seen the team push some really interesting ideas that they're like, 'Okay, we need to raise our bar. We need to go bigger on this.' And things like that. So, I think that's our hope, right? We would keep raising the bar and everyone just tries to go a little higher."

In addition to discussing *Baldur's Gate*, Ayoub touched on other topics such as *Magic: The Gathering*, Hasbro's partnership with Saber Interactive, and the company's overall game strategy. Look out for our full interview with him next week.

Every IGN 10 of 2023

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