How The Divinity Series Almost Didn't Happen
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- Leading up to the release of Divinity Original Sin 2: Definitive Edition, we visited Larian Studios to speak to CEO and designer Swen Vincke about the rough start the series had, their brushes with bankruptcy, and the risks the studio had to take to release Divinity Original Sin.
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Hey everyone! I'm the chap that made this video, but wouldn't have been able to make it happen without the lovely folk at Larian, so huge thanks to them!
Thanks for all the positive and constructive comments too, that's always wonderful to see! I hope you enjoy the video, and hope you enjoy jumping back into the game!
I truly admire your passion, Dave! You chose not to give up when things turned gray and granted us one of the best games of the decade! Baldurs Gate 3 looks amazing and you have all the support in the world from me and millions of fans! You and Larian keep up the good work! much respect from me and the fans!
Dude you have to respect larian studies immensely after hearing this story
Already did. They truly make games for gamers. A rare thing nowadays.
hats off to these guys. they went through so much and gave us DOS1 and 2 two greatest irpg games of all time. my heartfelt thanks to them!
Just a small nitpick but they refer to the game as a CRPG not a IRPG
@@aliquidgaming1068 haha you are right. my bad
Isometric rpg
@generic goose lol that's what I wanna know
Q@@MM2stupid
Such humble people. So glad I’ve bought 1 and 2 and can’t wait for their next game
One of the few game studios i really like and respect. Big thank you to them for their Hardwork and dedication.
It would be so awesome if larian studios became as big as cd projekt red in terms of studio size/budget or w/e. Their studio head is so passionate you can tell in this video. It would be incredible if they ever became some huge 500+ person company with basically an unlimited budget like CDPR. Hope divinity 2 sells well.
No reason why it won't see well seems that it sold well on pc a year ago. I can't wait to see what they are working on next
Hopefully preproduction on original sin 3
Well, CDPR are so big because they make games for a mass audience (good games, don't get me wrong). No matter how great your game is, a tactical turn-based RPG is just not going to make the same bucks as an action game. So I hope they don't become as big as CDPR, because that would imply having to compromise game design to appeal to more buyers. D:OS's strength is that it's an uncompromising cRPG for cRPG players, and they've demonstrated you can compete with that in the market. But let's be realistic - you can't (and need not) compete with open world action games designed to appeal to everyone.
I couldn't find any up-to-date sales figure to compare, but in the first two weeks W3 sold over 4 000 0000 copies to D:OS2's 600 000. Still impressive as hell, and W3 probably had more hype about it, but still.
@@Doomsterlobster i think you are wrong w3 sold 1.7million units in its first weeks
and dos 2 sold 500000 units in its first week
just to be clear
Well, 4m in first two weeks for W3 was the figure from Wikipedia - there were 1.5m pre-orders alone. At the end of last year, it was sitting at 33 million. Maybe you have more reliable figures, but I picked the 2-week figure because I could find it for both. Either way, the point is that W3 was among the year's best-selling games whereas Divinity did very well for its genre but in the grand scheme is nowhere near the top revenues.
Larian and CDProjekt: The masters of polishing their releases.
And CDProject are Polish so that's double the polish.
Sterman99 U trolling or stupid ? Back up your claim that CDPR dumbs down their games.
+Sterman99 CDPR don't make RPGs but Action-RPGs. That's just not the same genre, you can't compare Divinity to The Witcher.
@Sterman99 How can one man be so based.
Gotta throw in Obsidian as well.....
This game is art and I will support anything this company does in the future.
Well...I bought DOS twice, for XB1 & PS4. And, received my pre-order copy of DOS2 today. Thank you Larian Studios for surviving!
Such an amazing series. I’ve played through both DOS1/2 so many times at this point. I am so happy this company succeeded. Also, this guy is just so genuine. Most companies would never share their financial histories unless extremely positive
I love how you edited in the more dramatic battle music while he was talking about almost losing everything lol nice touch.
Thank you ;D
Never thought it was THAT hard. This guy, his dedication and the willpower are the true inspiration
so glad larian has made it, legit beyond satisfied with DOS2
They are literally the good guys of RPG! Remember when the DOS1 was a little unbalanced and they OVERWORKED the whole F***ing game to "enhanced edition" and gave it to every owner of the classic edition for free? And the same went for DOS2, while the mistakes or unbalancies were much lower because they LEARN. And IMPROVISED. ADAPTED. OVERCAME.
I loved Divine Divinity, the soundtrack by Prokovsky totally sucked me into the world.
RIP
I looked everywhere for a game that resemble dnd. Pillars of et was close but divinity did it 500% better
Excited for Baldur's Gate III? :D
Well then BG III might do it 1000% better :D
I get the feeling these guys don’t know how good they are. DOS 2 makes me stop and marvel in the midst of gameplay more than any other game I’ve ever played. And that’s due not only to a game engine that I could swear at times surprises itself, but also to a main story that has an impressive number of branches and side-stories that never seem to forget how to get back to the main story path.
Love the humility of Sven and Larian, looking forward to having my mind blown in BG3.
Long live Minsc.
Larian Studios wants to Do MORE after Divinity Original Sin 2? With the latest update to the definitive version, it's pretty much one of the best tactical RPGs of all time. Great story, great characters, great combat, great music, great voice acting...and I'd like to say again...great combat. True turn based tactical combat with wizards and fighters and rogues and archers and all that fantasy stuff we know and love...it's just amazing. And the characters....Lohse, The Red Prince, and Sebille are my faves (My avatar being Ifan). I can't gush about this game enough.
I'm so glad Larian stuck to it and ended up giving us this great game! Divinity Original Sin 2 and The Witcher 3....so much RPG goodness! Good in different ways, but both brilliant! What more could a cRPG fan want!?!? Larian and CD Projekt Red...both the very best.
That explains why Divinity 2 is so good. Art from adversity. These guys had to fight for their game.
This studio. This game. This soundtrack. It is RPG to perfection - so freely, so prepared to the deviant ways of the players, so perfect. So challenging, so rewarding. Literally the perfect RPG out there. SO MUCH LOVE FOR LARIAN.
Square Enix, Larian Studios, From Software, and CD Projekt Red are all my favorite studios. They all work so hard and release such good games. They inspire me and continue my interest in gaming culture.
And Naughty Dog.
@@bigzachful and Kojima Productions.
Rockstar? Naughty Dog? Rocksteady?
square enix ahahahahahhaha! good joke
Obsidian!
Strong willed leader, kudos to staff as well. Glad you guys hung in there. Btw is this the noclip narrator?
I'm really glad the whole team at Larian Studios was able to keep their head above water, I don't think I can stomach thinking about Larian closing their doors and never playing Original Sin. Such a great game, truly deserves all the praise.
Who else finished Ego Divinity 2
Hail the DRAGON NIGHT
Such a good game
Daily reminder that Divinity 2 was made on a 2 million dollar budget acquired from kickstarter but sycophants will constantly parrot the phrase "games are so expensive to make! We need microtransactions just so developers can make their money back!"
+Sid Stoudemire I love divinity 2 its one of my favorite games I've played in awhile, but this game is smaller on so many levels to the games you're comparing it to haha. Also While I hate EA with a passion you can't really blame them since they are a publicly traded company they will always care about what keeps investors happy and drive profit over what the gamers want.
+Nub93 Lol blame the system that makes it more financially feasible to listen to keep your investors happy at the expense of your consumers. If you take down EA somehow, how will that fix the underlying issue which is not EA itself. Notice how the worst offenders of lootbox and season passes and shit are primarily companies you can own stock in. Ea isn't the problem with the industry... they are a product of it.
If I remember correctly, the kickstarter was just to add in extra stuff for the fans. Now that's awesome. Asking fans for ideas for extra content.
Micro transactions is how they backstab their customers. Greed painted as desperation for 'quality' lack there of lol
Lol, the game didn't cost $2 million, it cost much more than that. The Kickstarter was just for extra funding and fan support.
Heres a very passionaite ass game developer. I support Larian whole heartly.
I love Larian Studio and CD Projekt Red, they are two developers that know what the players,of today want and listen to thier fan base.
I'm going to purchase both Original Sin 1 & 2. I have such an appreciation for Larian Studios after all their struggles. I'm inspired by them and Sven.
Played Div 2 and loved it. Went a tried Div 1 and thought the story and questing was too clunky. I never knew what to do, it was too vague. quests should be written where the dialog gives you hints on what to do. I hope Div 3 expands on everything and adds more mechanics.
I agree with you on the problems that Div 1 has. While i love the writing, combat system and many other aspects of the game, i had to have a walkthrough handy most of the time.
Knowing what do, where and when was quite difficult to decipher.
I played the first chapter of Div 2 on PS4 (available to play before todays release for preorders) for 25 hours and didn't have to resort to any guides at all. Quite an improvement.
Hopefully the trend continues now as i start to explore the lands beyond Fort Joy...
The problem is your approach to the game. You tied yourself to the mmorpg style of thinking where you pick an entry in your log and then solve it. Then you pick something else and solve it.
It was never meant to be played like that because the quests are not structured like that. The game is designed around exploration. If you simply explore anywhere you have not been to yet, and if you explore in a systematic way instead of zigzagging around randomly, and if you let the level of the enemies you see guide you, you will solve 95% of the quests without even trying or giving it any individual effort.
And the thing is, every single quest in DOS1 gave you very specific hints on what to do. Go ahead and name any quest you think had no direction and I will point out what you missed.
@@kenmolinaro I'll second this, Divinity Original Sin was basically just exploration bliss for my sister and I. Occasionally we'd come across locations or npc's that would trigger a light bulb moment, and draw us back to our journals, but for the most part the completion of quests was almost accidental and organic and I kind of loved that.
You know, I want to eventually go into video game design as a career. If I were to join a studio after getting the education and learned all the skills needed I'd say I would likely gun for a studio like Larian.
Watched this while playing divinity original sin enhanced edition
Watched this while playing divinity original sin 2 definitive edition.
@@klarnorbert Me too! Have fun, Norbert!
Why am I now finding out about this video? Man, I loved Divinity Original Sin 2. It was so good.
So, we have confirmation - DOS3 is on the way! :D
this makes dragon age inquisition a joke
This makes Pillars of Eternity 2 a joke
Lol yeah EA fucked up hard on DAI. But it's still fun to play it.
fun to play? yeah sure if you like a action rpg, but that is not why you play DAI lol
Whenever I play DA: Inquisition I remember that it came from the same people who made DA: Origins, and it makes me sad to see how far they've fallen. The dragon fights were one of the only good parts of that game.
While the game wasn't very good, I wouldn't be so quick to judge the studio. Who knows what they went through.
I Want another Ego Draconis, this Game was so awesome :D
I'll remember seeing the Game as a kid in our local shopping Mall, it had a huge Dragon as it's Cover, and then i found it again 8 Years later, played it , loved it.
End of the video basically means "we're gonna make Divinity 3 and it's gonna be EVEN BETTER!" :D
Close. :D
this is why i bought BG3 early access, this company deserves our support.
After watching this video I wanna buy Divinity Original Sin 2 EE and any future releases from Larian Studios sight unseen
Thank God for developers like Larian with so much passion and talent! I can't wait to see what they will do in the future.
My favorite one is divinity 2 ego draconis
That feeling when i was their fan since Beyond Divinity
Watching this makes me want to get baldurs gate 3 early access. I can understand why they are releasing at full price and I want to support such an amazing studio.
Yup. I normally stay away from early access. And I don't buy games upon release anymore, since all too often I end up paying full price for an unfinished game (Looking at you, EA).
But these guys... Well, for one it's Baldur's Gate. For another, and that's the main reason: they're Larian (and there's a little Belgian pride in there as well). I WANT to pay full price for early access so I can be part of the creation and development of this game in my own small way, by playing it and giving feedback (which is what I've been doing for the past months).
Wouldn't want to live in a world without any of the Divinity games, every one is just 👌
These are the type of developers I support and give money to. I recently picked up the definitive edition for DOS2 and I can really tell the game was well made. Looking forward for upcoming projects!
This really shows that you can basically find a market for anything as long as you truly believe in your product first. I honestly would have had my doubts investing in a 3 man company doing an oldschool turned based RPG in 2018. But, Larian believed in it so much themselves that it worked.
Bought it yesterday after pre ordering. Pretty sick, and I get to play split screen co op with my boys. I love swen. I hope he's rich as fuck right now
I hope they make tons of money they deserve it unlike ea games and Activision
These guys are monstrous. I wish I could give them more money solely bc of divinity OS 2
When I first played Divine Divinity years ago, I knew Larian was a developer with a lot of passion and talent, and now with both Original Sin games I'm happy they finally are getting the respect and recognition they deserve. Along with CDProject Red, Larian are leading the way forward for the RPG genre.
I once said when playing DoS2 with a friend: I wish we could have a DnD game like this!
The main reason we played DoS2 together was because we wanted to play a turn based RPG. I was currently playing Pillars of Eternity and floated the idea with my friend to play something like that together. He mentioned he didn't like real time RPGs like that, and that's why he never liked the Baldurs Gate series. (as it was a big departure from the table top game of DnD)
Imagine our excitement when we learned Larian Studios was in charge of Balrurs Gate 3!
Good job, Larian. Yours will be the only games I preorder every and any time.
I feel like I have to play earlier Divinity games. DOS2 Is the first one ive ever played. And its one of the best. Which gives me cravings for the previous entries.
Is there any online retailer out there that still sells the Collector's Edition of Divinity 2: Ego Draconis? It's one of my favorite RPGs from the Xbox 360/PS3 era :3
After all cyberpunk fiasco Larian is my most favorite studio now. I bought divinity 2 on xbox one, switch and pc. Got the baldurs gate 3 early access too. I'd say it is money well spent.
I hope noclip documentary is made for this. these guys deserve some limelight
Actual journalism by a bug game site. Shocking but great job GameSpot.
Thanks...I think haha
@@IrregularDave I mean that as a compliment. You don't see much actual journalism anymore on big sites.
Larian Studios and CDProjekt Red, the only companies that still have morals. Can't stress enough how much I love you for existing. Divinity: OS are the best two games ever created for me.
This didnt age well.
One of the best RPG series of the decade...
An amazing and unbelievable game. This game, Witcher 3, Absolver and Siege have been my top games for years now
great video! so interesting hearing this side of video game development
Yes, Larian and CD Project RED keeps me believing there's still a faith in gamedev. I'm glad supporting them in DOS1 and 2
Before my favourite Fantasy Adventure RPG was dragon age ^ Now became Divinity >~
I love divinity series,currently playing original sin 2 for the fourth time,it's amazing😍
Struggle breeds the best. Whether it's gave devs, athletes, musicians, or anything.
I'm glad that DOS2 was an experiment. That only means that they have more games to come!
Divinity original sin 2 is my favorite RPG game of all time since Gothic 2
Swen: "It's a good game, but we can be much better"
:O
Hype for DoS 3!
Thanks for staying!
You Sir...
Are my favorite geek in the universe...
Thank you... 🙏
This is insane. Despite all their talent, and the success of their games, it was only very recently that they have been comfortably keeping their heads above the water... Would never have guessed it.
Thanks for the video! I'm really interested in trying out this game, but I haven't played any of the other divinity games before. Is it worth playing anything else in the series before this one?
Darasimi Makinde I played it without prior knowledge of the games before and it was still an intriguing and whole experience! That being said, I do believe that there are some plot points that would be a reference to the first game.
I’m not interested in divinity at all
But this is gamespots strongest part of their channel. Keep doing this
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
You should probably still check out Dragon Commander.
It contains all the charm of a Larian game, but is a pretty easy strategy-fusion game.
Divinity 2 Ego Draconis is still my favorite game, but their later games are also great!
Larian Studios, you'd let us know if you need another kickstarter, mkay? We need ya.
What an eye opener. I really hope Larian can release many D&D campaigns for WOTC.
They will have my financial support.
I badly want a sequel to Divinity 2 : Dragon Knight Saga.
Well, there is no sequel planned concerning that game because it's set in 1300 AD, while Dos 2 set in 1242 AD, that means that Larian are progressing the story Dos 2 literally going backwards to re-maintain the ever confusing story of the whole franchise, i think that Divinity: Fallen Heroes (The sequel to DOS2) will decide or to be more precise "fill the gaps" between Dos 2 and Divinity: The Dragon Knight Saga (rumour has it that Divinity 2 The Dragon Knight Saga is gonna be retconned / removed from the official timeline since its story doesn't go with its predecessors (Beyond Divinity and DOS2) however i wouldn't believe it yet as long as Fallen Heroes is in the making, that project will DECIDE the fate of Divinity 2 and its sequel if possible)
Praise Swen, he is truely a passionate developer.
just goes to show how great big indie devs are for the gaming scene
"Divine Divinity wasn't finished when it launched."
NO KIDDING! The last 3rd of the game seems empty and boring. In spite of that, the entire game is one of my favorites. I wish Larian would redo the entire game in Original Sin engine.
I'm pretty sure it's feasible with the actual modding tools.
Big fan of Larry, he and his team deserve a huge success!
DON'T EVEN START ON IT, I DON'T WANNA THINK ABOUT THIS.
It'll be great to see what they do next
Why not you guys work with cdprojekt red ?? Imagine how epic the game would be
Really awesome vid dude. Gj! I didn't know the story behind the studio... now i love them even more 🤗
These guys are awesome and have made the best rpg series of all time, thanks for telling their story.
Love the game which is why I bought the definitive edition.
Inspirational is an understatement.
MAn these guys truly worked hard ~ I Love divinity original sin more coz of the Creator's attitude ~ beautiful people.
Amazing Devs! Love you guys.
That's a lot of strife for such a company. Hope they will stabilize now.
Welcome to Indie game development.
Never played any of their games until DOS2. I actually just got it last night for the PS4 pro. Its hard as hell for someone not familiar with this type of game but I love it. Only 4 hours in. Starting over again when I get home lol. I was not sure what the hell I was doing at first when I started but slowly learning the ropes. Im glad they stuck it out and survived. Congrats to Larian Studios for sure.
Swen is a hero
the Hell these people went through to eventually make my favorite game of 2017. nothing but respect
Gosh this video almost gave me an anxiety attack. Poor guy!
so in my first run i did around 140 hours now i get the chance to replay with the DD
Makes me respect them even more
Good watch, thanks 👍🏻
Big respect to larian studios. They are example of good studio treating customers right. There is no bullshit in pricing. Game is 45€ and thats it. You get what you pay. Any new features stories or anything will come in new game. But their games are still FULL of life
The thought of this game not existing, makes me feel all kinds of uneasy. Since it's quickly become one of my all time favourite games.
Makes you think of what other lost, amazing, life changing titles that no one will ever get to play.
What a good video !
Well done !
Im dying to play this game. However, cant seem to find it on ps4 store asia region. 😭