Baldur's Gate 3 May Be One Of E3 2019's Big Surprises

Larian's Divinity: Original Sin series – which so far amounts to two games – have found a lot of success as throwbacks to the golden age of computer RPGs with modern tweaks, so when the company started teasing an E3 2019 announcement with the roman numeral "III," a lot of people probably made some logical assumptions. With Divinity: Original Sin 2 turning two years old in September, E3 2019 seems like the perfect time to announce its follow-up, right?

What at first seems like an innocuous teaser for Divinity: Original Sin 3 might not be quite as straightforward as any of us initially believed. After the teaser was published, Twitter user Kunken discovered that opening the page source of the teaser reveals a link for the video that's currently playing on Larian's site, which can then be saved locally. When Kunken then opened that video in a text editor, they found some rather interesting references.

As documented in that Twitter thread, multiple references to Baldur's Gate 3 and Wizards of the Coast appear in the resulting text, suggesting that this is something far bigger that Original Sin 3. Baldur's Gate and its sequel, Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, were released by BioWare in the late '90s and early 2000s, and though there have been some spin-offs throughout the years, the core RPG series has laid dormant for almost two decades at this point.

In recent years, the Baldur's Gate series has re-entered the picture thanks to remasters from Beamdog, which also created a new expansion for the original Baldur's Gate. Perhaps that renewed interest has led Wizards of the Coast to recruit Larian in reviving the franchise with an entirely new game?

Judging by both Original Sin titles, Larian would be a great studio to pick up the Baldur's Gate mantle. We'll find out soon enough if Larian is indeed teasing Baldur's Gate 3, as E3 2019 is only a couple of weeks away.