Larian Studios, the developer of the 2023 Game of the Year Baldur’s Gate 3, had planned to release DLC for the game but canceled it early into development, as they were ready to move on.

Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke previously announced at this year’s Game Developers Conference that Larian will no longer be working on the Baldur’s Gate series, and would not be making DLC or a sequel to last year’s hit. He has now spoken to IGN to further explain the decision not to create DLC.

He said the team began working on DLC and had started thinking about what they were going to do for a potential Baldur’s Gate 4, as they wanted to capitalize on the system that they had created.

“Because of all the success the obvious thing would have been to do a DLC, so we started on one. We started even thinking about BG4,” Vincke said. “But we hadn’t really had closure on BG3 yet and just to jump forward on something new felt wrong. We had also spent a whole bunch of time converting the system into a video game and we wanted to do new things.”

He went on to say that working within the constrictions of the D&D 5th Edition system was difficult, as the team had a lot of ideas for combat that would not fit into it. Though DLC felt like the natural move, Vincke said that it felt like the team was just making it for the sake of it.

“You could see the team was doing it because everyone felt like we had to do it, but it wasn’t really coming from the heart, and we’re very much a studio from the heart,” he said. “It’s what gotten us into misery and it’s also been the reasons for our success.”

Vincke said he made the decision to cancel the DLC while on break for the Christmas holidays, telling the team that the story had a beginning, middle, and end and that it was time for them to have closure on it.

“I thought they were going to be angry at me because I just couldn’t muster the energy,” he said. “I saw so many elated faces, which I didn’t expect, and I could tell they shared the same feelings, so we were all aligned with one another. And I’ve had so many developers come to me after and say, ‘Thank god.'”

Vincke confirmed that the team is still making small content updates for Baldur’s Gate 3, but will be moving on to an entirely new project once that is done.

“We didn’t have any antagonism against BG4 or DLC, but the heart wasn’t there. It was more routine work than actually being excited. Now we have the excitement back in the room and that’s a big important thing,” he said.