LogIn"We didn't overly crunch."
During the Digital Dragons conference held in Poland last week, Swen Vincke, the director of Baldur's Gate 3 and Larian Studios' CEO, addressed the issue of "crunch" — substantial overtime to catch a deadline — in game development.
During a Q+A session following his talk, Vincke confirmed that while the team did experience some crunch when working on Baldur's Gate 3, it was less compared to previous projects. "It would be a lie to say that we didn't," he acknowledged, pointing out unforeseen circumstances that sometimes brought extra work.
"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."
While some level of crunch was unavoidable, Vincke emphasized that the extent of overtime work during Baldur's Gate 3 development was relatively minimal. Offices were usually empty beyond 8 p.m., and weekend work was "very, very, very rare."
Image credit: Larian Studios, Baldur's Gate 3
Vincke highlighted Larian's solution to this issue: set up a global network of studios to maintain round-the-clock operations, which helps effectively reduce the need for any individual to work long hours to tackle issues that pop up after business hours.
Check out the original report from Game's Radar here and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
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