Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke shares uncut GOTY speech and addresses Wizards of the Coast layoffs
The speech we should’ve heard
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Baldur’s Gate 3director and CEO of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, has shared his full speech for winningGame of the YearatThe Game Awards 2023.
Despite taking home six awards, including the biggest award of the ceremony, Vincke and his team were only given a short amount of time accept it, which prompted criticism of the event for not offering winners more time to speak and give their thanks (via IGN).
However, now in a new Twitterthread, Vincke has posted his uncut speech, thanking everyone from the players, the cast ofBaldur’s Gate 3, and of course the development team.
“Winning Game of the Year is a great honor and I want to first thank everyone that voted for us and I want to congratulate all the other nominees. This has been an incredibly competitive year and you each would have deserved to win this award,” Vincke wrote, tagging the developers of the other Game of the Year nominees, Capcom, Remedy Entertainment, Insomniac Games and Nintendo.
Vincke continued by thanking those who organized The Game Awards, as well as its host, Geoff Keighley, adding: “While 30 secs is a bit short, there’s nothing like The Game Awards and it’s an incredible achievement.”
Larian Studios' CEO also commended the over 2,000 people credited on the game, but wanted to focus “on a group of people that don’t always get the credit they deserve,” which included the QA team, localization, customer support, operations, publishing, playtesters, “and every other developer at Larian,BG3wouldn’t exist without you and you all deserve to be very proud of this.”
I want to dedicate this award to the friends and family members we lost during development including Jim, our lead cinematic animator who passed away last month and personally to my father who passed away the week before we launched our early access campaign (8/16)December 14, 2023
Like in his speech on the night, Vincke went on to dedicate the award to friends and family members the team lost during the development of the game, including Jim Southworth, the lead cinematic animator onBaldur’s Gate 3who passed away in November. He also personally dedicated the win to his father who died the week before the game launched in early access.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
In addition, Vincke thanked theDungeons & Dragonsteam and addressed the recentlayoffs at Hasbrowhich affected Wizards of the Coast (via Forbes).
“I’m really sorry to hear so many of you were let go,” he said. “It’s a sad thing to realize that of the people who were in the original meeting room, there’s almost nobody left. I hope you all end up well.”
Vincke wrapped things up, saying: “Games are a unique art form, as important as books, music or movies. Many developers, myself included, make games because they love seeing others engage with their creations in a way only games can offer. They don’t care that much about the money made beyond it being the fuel they need to create new and better games. It’s worth reminding everyone that fuel is but a means, not a goal. Whereto and how we journey are what matter and what we remember. Thank you.”
To conclude, Vincke joked that the game is now out onXbox Series X|S, which he was supposed to announce during The Game Awards. The announcement was instead made on social media shortly after the event ended.
For more, check out our list of thebest PC games, as well as our list of thebest story games.
I reviewed the PS5 Pro and recommend these 7 enhanced games to try first
Valve just single-handedly upgraded content creation for PC gamers – Steam’s Game Recording feature is now available to all
Watch out, Nvidia - new benchmarks suggest Apple M4 Ultra could beat the mighty RTX 4090
