Development Info Larian Studios Documentary by Gameumentary

[Infinitron]

Tags: Beyond Divinity; David Walgrave; Divine Divinity; Divinity II; Divinity: Dragon Commander; Divinity: Original Sin; Divinity: Original Sin 2; Jan Van Dosselaer; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke; The Lady, the Mage and the Knight

Gameumentary is a games journalism outlet that specializes in producing free full-length documentaries about video game studios. You may have seen their Kingdom Come: Deliverance documentary back in July. This week they released a 68 minute documentary about Larian Studios. Although primarily dedicated to the Divinity: Original Sin games, the first half of the documentary is about Larian's history prior to that, starting from the cancelled The Lady, the Mage and the Knight, through Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity, up to Divinity II and Divinity: Dragon Commander. There's not much new here in terms of information if you've read the various "history of Larian" articles that have been published in the press over the past few years, but it's worth watching for the photos and footage - including a look at an early real-time version of Original Sin, back when it was still called "Eyes of a Child".

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Thoroughly inspiring stuff. Don't miss the post-credits scene at the end, where after a respectful tribute to Kirill Pokrovsky, Swen Vincke reveals the codename of Larian's next major title - Project Gustav. That's actually been a thing since at least July, apparently.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

That was some quality production.

Also, not always into some of the questionable design choices Larian has made so far, but it's hard to deny they can be counted among the "reliable devs" around when it comes to producing noteworthy RPGs these days.

 

[Tito Anic]

Divine Divinity, Divinity:ED are really cool games with much soul in it. I dont get same feeling with new Larian games.

 

[Paul_cz]

Would be nice if Project Gustav was a third person RPG again taking on the biggest competition.

 

[Harry Easter]

Eyes of a Child looked and sounded actually quite nice. I hope they will reuse the idea for the story in some way.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[himmy]

My cat is called Gustav and he's a little piece of shit (but I still love him), so hopefully the game is going to end up better than that.

 

[Alpan]

I was unaware that Larian had grown by a factor of 5 to 6 between the time of the two Original Sins. I like Larian, and it'll be a sad day when they join the ranks of companies taught the timeless lesson of regression towards the mean.

 

[Outlander]

I was unaware that Larian had grown by a factor of 5 to 6 between the time of the two Original Sins. I like Larian, and it'll be a sad day when they join the ranks of companies taught the timeless lesson of regression towards the mean.

Swen said a couple of times how he regretted each time they stopped doing work for hire. Now with a 150-180 people size company, it's doubtful all they're focusing in is this 'Project Gustav'.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[abnaxus]

Aside from Larian's troubles, dtp entertainment put Radon Labs (Drakensang) out of business and nearly Deck13 (Venetica, The Surge).

 

[Outlander]

Swen said a couple of times how he regretted each time they stopped doing work for hire

why?

Because they ran out of money, had to lay off a bunch of people and were very close to shutting down a couple of times. It's all in the video.

He's referring to the kids/mobile games, though, not the issues they had with publishers in the past.