Baldur's Gate 3 will not be affected by DnD licensing changes

Baldur’s Gate 3 will not be affected by the Dungeons and Dragons Open Gaming License changes, Larian has confirmed.

Responding to our request for comment on the situation, Larian would not comment on the ongoing debate surrounding the leaked changes to the Dungeon and Dragons Open Gaming License (OGL) nor their thoughts on those changes. However, they did confirmed that Baldur’s Gate 3 would not be affected by them.

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Ever since the OGL leak by io9, as well as the reported closure of several studios creating licensed Dungeons and Dragons games, a portion of the fanbase has been concerned whether or not Larian, Baldur’s Gate 3, or any future titles would catch any strays from these changes.

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The updated OGL featured several changes that stirred the ire of DnD players and creators. For one, Wizard of the Coast would be able to claim royalties from work based on their systems reference document (containing their classes, items, spells, etc). In addition, it would deauthorize all prior versions of the OGL, meaning companies would be forced to shift over to the new rules.

These leaked OGL changes have lead to significant backlash from the online tabletop RPG community, who have come together to voice their frustrations with these changes via the OpenDnD movement, a mass departure from Wizards of the Coast’s DnD app, DnD Beyond, as well as tabletop competitor Paizo (creators of Pathfinder) creating their own new OGL.

Wizard and the Coast has since responded to this backlash and the leaked OGL (you can read a great breakdown of that on Dicebreaker), but it’s currently unclear what impact this has had on the future of Dungeons and Dragons games. Will developers like Larian continue to create games set in that universe? Or will they look elsewhere for source material? Only time will tell.