Baldur's Gate 3 Director Acknowledges Overtime, Prioritizes Reduced Crunch

This week, Swen Vincke, the director of Baldur's Gate 3, spoke at the Digital Dragons conference in Poland. During his talk, he discussed some of the challenges faced by his team during the game's development. One key topic was the issue of "crunch"-working substantial overtime to meet deadlines.

Efforts to Minimize Crunch Time

Vincke admitted that the team did experience crunch, though less so than on previous projects. "Certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past," he said. He noted that unexpected problems did arise, leading to extra work hours.

To manage this, Larian Studios set up multiple offices worldwide to provide 24-hour support. This structure aimed to reduce the need for any single person to work extra hours to resolve late-night issues. Recently, Larian opened its seventh studio in Warsaw, Poland, to assist with their ambitious new RPGs.

Balancing Workload with Paid Overtime

Vincke also mentioned that the studio offered paid overtime to make late hours more manageable for the team. He emphasized that the crunch on Baldur's Gate 3 wasn't as intense as people might think. Most office spaces were almost empty after 8 PM, and weekend work was very rare.

"We didn't overly crunch," Vincke said. "But we did have to do a bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you're trying to finish something, especially when there's so much complexity that needs to be brought together."