Having swept at The Game Awards (TGAs) this year, including taking home Game of the Year (GOTY), you’d think the organizers would have given Swen Vincke, Larian Studio’s CEO and director of Baldur’s Gate 3, a bit more time to thank the team and community. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.
However, that hasn’t stopped Vincke from taking to X and sharing what he wanted to say during the Game of the Year acceptance speech, and it is a heartfelt message to all the team and fans who made the game possible.
Related: BG3 Winning Game Of The Year Gave Me A Mid-Life Crisis In The Best Way
Vincke Thanks Underrepresented Team Members and Friends and Family Lost During Development
In an X thread of 17 tweets, Vincke lays out a beautifully worded series of thank yous and acknowledgments to the Larian team and the community for their support and love for the game, which seems to be what he intended to say while accepting Baldur’s Gate 3’s GOTY award last week.
Aside from thanking the show organizers, Geoff Keighley, and the other nominations, including Capcom, Remedy, Insomniac, and Nintendo, Vincke took the time to thank specific members of the development team he felt “don’t always get the credit they deserve.” These included the QA, localization, customer support, playtesters, publishing, and operations.
He also took a moment in the thread to dedicate the award to friends and family the team lost during development, including Jim Southworth, who passed away last month, and his father, who he lost the week before the early access launch. On top of that, he thanked the community for their love and support, the actors for their work, and Wizards of the Coast and the D&D team for giving them carte blanche while acknowledging the company’s recent layoffs. He also threw in that BG3 is now on Xbox, something he didn’t get to during his speech.
Community reaction to the thread has been overwhelmingly positive, with many on the tweets themselves and on Reddit expressing their thanks and praise for him and the team, including Devora Wilde, Lae’zel’s voice and motion capture actor. It also has caused many players to point out and hold up both the award and Vincke’s words as examples the industry should look to, in terms of creating a quality game, and highlight what they believe to be clever gabs at the industries less than favorable practices when it comes to employee treatment.
If nothing else, it’s great to see Vincke get the chance to express his appreciation and thanks for the hardworking people who made Baldur’s Gate 3 the smash hit it has become and to share that success with the players who love the game so much. Here’s to their adventure, which we imagine many are eager to see.
