Baldur's Gate 3 Lead Says "There's Almost Nobody Left" On D&D Team From First Meetings

It's been a rough year for the games industry. Even though we've been playing quality titles almost constantly throughout 2023, the people that made them are being laid off, treated poorly, or having their studios shut down completely. Developers are constantly in fear of losing their livelihoods, as not even a game as successful as Baldur's Gate 3 stopped Hasbro from laying off 1,100 people.

It's been so bad this past few years that even the people behind the most successful games of 2023 are no longer working for the companies benefiting from their creative work. We'll use Baldur's Gate 3 as an example again, as Larian CEO Swen Vincke recently revealed that there's "almost nobody left" on the Dungeons & Dragon team at Wizards of the Coast that helped greenlight the title in the first place.

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Vincke used his personal Twitter account to thank a number of people who helped make Baldur's Gate 3 a reality, which he wanted to do during his Game of the Year acceptance speech at The Game Awards if he hadn't been quickly ushered off-stage. It's during this Twitter thread that Vincke reveals almost everyone in the original meeting room for Baldur's Gate 3 has since been let go.

While layoffs are nothing new for the games industry, this year has seen an almost unprecedented number, with the likes of BioWare, CD Projekt Red, and Bungie all having laid off hundreds of workers between them. We've also seen some incredibly famous studios shut down, most notably Embracer's closure of Saints Row developer Volition and Timesplitters developer Free Radical Design.

Some of the companies laying people off are absolutely huge too, with Fortnite developer Epic Games having laid off almost 900 workers back in September. Microsoft also laid off 10,000 employees earlier this year, reportedly affecting developers such as Bethesda, The Coalition, and Halo developer 343 Industries. There's quiet hope that next year will be better, though there are also fears things could get much worse from here on out.

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