The head of Larian Studios, Sven Vincke, admitted that the studio once considered other franchises besides Baldur's Gate. The developers intended to take on the creation of games based on Ultima and Fallout.
In an interview with Edge, Sven Vincke said that they needed a famous game series to break into the very top of the video game industry:
It would be Ultima, it would be Fallout, it would be Baldur's Gate. There was nothing to choose from.
According to the developer, big names would attract more interested employees to Larian Studios and «break the glass ceiling» of opportunities. In the end, they managed to get a license for Baldur's Gate from Wizards of the Coast, but the deal almost fell through at the very beginning. The studio had not yet completed work on Divinity: Original Sin 2 when the owners of the rights to Baldur's Gate asked them for a design document for the third part:
Wizards sent it [the game's design document] back with the corporate equivalent of, «This is real crap.» And we told [them], «We know, but we're busy releasing another game [DoS2], don't ask us to make this now. Give us an extension». Luckily they understood, and we got another chance.
Previously, the screenwriter of Baldur's Gate 3 told how exactly the shocking scene with the bear appeared in the game.