Baldur's Gate 3 has a gigantic budget, we don't have 200 million dollars, explains Owlcat Games

Oleg Shpilchevskiy, the CEO of Owlcat Games, explained that most development studios dealing with isometric role-playing games do not have the money necessary to develop a Baldur's Gate 3, including his company. Shpilchevskiy shared his point of view in the recording of the latest episode of the Russian podcast Trem, in which he explained: “Baldur's Gate 3 has a gigantic budget. Few studios can actually afford it, let alone invest so much money in a game isometric role. I know that this was already the second game for Larian that represented an all or nothing situation: you invest all your money in one fell swoop and then wait to see if it goes well or not. Well done to them, they are brave people, and it's clear that they're not moving randomly. But, again, we can't invest, say, 200 million dollars to make Baldur's Gate 3 – we don't have that much money. And I don't know any company in the world that would invest that much money in a CRPG.”

A difficult market

Shpilchevskiy first cataloged games by their own production values: AAA games have a budget ranging from 50 to 70 million dollars and revenues of at least 300 million dollars are expected to be considered a success; AA games have a budget of $5 to $15 million and are expected to make at least $50 million to be considered a success; A games have a budget of 1-2 million dollars (here Shpilchevskiy does not provide revenue targets).

Naturally it should be specified that the budget of the games varies depending on the territory in which the development studio is located and depending on the genre itself. Shpilchevskiy talks about his experience with traditional role-playing games, but we all know that a title like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 had a total budget of 315 million dollars, just as The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Forbidden West exceeded 200 million dollars.

Owlcat's titles are all classifiable as AA, including the recent Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Only the next one seems to be bigger, with the development team having already involved 150 people (compared to the 30 who developed Rogue Trader).

For Shpilchevskiy Baldur's Gate 3 was a phenomenon, coming from a company with unique characteristics, with which it is not possible to compete. The other ones that deal with traditional role-playing games will continue to carve out their niche, even though Baldur's Gate 3 is now the obvious and unattainable point of comparison for everyone.

So, for example, the next Owlcat game will be fully voiced, because players now expect it, despite the obvious problems it entails: increased costs and a different approach to development.