Baldur’s Gate 3 director shares GOTY acceptance speech he wanted to give at The Game Awards, but couldn’t: “Whereto and how we journey are what matter and what we remember”

What you need to know

• Baldur’s Gate 3, the critically acclaimed D&D-style RPG from Larian Studios, took home Game of the Year and five other awards during The Game Awards last week.
• However, like other winners at the show, director Swen Vincke’s acceptance speech was cut off by a restrictive 30-second time limit.
• A week later, Vincke has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to share his full speech, which you’ll find in the text below.
• He also went on to remind fans that Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on Xbox following a lengthy delay over issues with split screen on the Xbox Series S.

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Last week’s The Game Awards show was the biggest in the event’s nine-year history, but also one of its most vocally criticized presentations. Viewers and game developers alike slammed the program for giving very little attention to the award-winning studios themselves, and instead focusing almost completely on trailers, commercials, Hollywood celebrity appearances, and that 10-minute Hideo Kojima segment about OD, a game we’ve seen nothing of. Devs only had 30 seconds to accept their awards before a teleprompter, along with loud music, pressured them to get offstage with “Please Wrap it Up” text.

Swen Vincke, the director of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Larian Studios’ CEO, was subject to being cut off like this — despite the fact that nothing came after his time onstage since his Game of the Year acceptance speech closed out the show. A week later, though, Vincke has shared what was supposed to be his full speech on X (formerly Twitter). To read it, you can either check out the thread or view it below:

“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 (Remedy Entertainment, Insomniac Games, Nintendo, Capcom) each would have deserved to win this award.”

“I want to thank Geoff Keighley and the people that organized The Game Awards for creating an award show so big that it gets mainstream attention. While 30 secs is a bit short, there’s nothing like the Game Awards and it’s an incredible achievement.”

“I wore armor at the The Game Awards because BG3 is a game that couldn’t exist without its our player community and I wanted to pay tribute to how important they’ve been for the development. You rock community BG3. Making a game like this only works if you have an incredible, passionate and talented team and in that regard I am incredibly lucky with Larian — they are some of the finest and they did a truly amazing job.”

“Over 2000 people are listed in the credits and since I can’t call out everyone, I want to focus on a group of people that don’t always get the credit they deserve. Team QA, team localization, team customer support, team operations, team publishing, team play testers, and every other developer at Larian, BG3 wouldn’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.”

“You don’t get to make something like BG3 if you don’t have the support from the people around you. Personally, I really want to thank 5 special people, a crazy dog and a one-eyed cat for sticking with me.”

“Big shout out also to our localization partners and Pit Stop Productions who had to use every corner of their building to record and performance capture what was an insane number of lines. To our actors — you did great. I hope our paths will cross again in the future and your agents will remain their usual reasonable selves. I also want to thank Wizards of the Coast and specifically the DnD team for giving us carte blanche. I’m really sorry to hear so many of you were let go. 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. There are many more partners I want to thank. We asked much of you all, but you delivered and without your efforts, BG3 would not be what it is.”

“I want to end with a story of a conversation I had a long time ago with a publisher. He told me, luckily for them, games are driven by idealism. He meant it in an exploitative way but he was right. 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.”

It’s an amazing, touching address to Baldur’s Gate 3’s fans as well as Vincke’s fellow developers, and it’s incredibly disappointing that he wasn’t able to give it during The Game Awards itself. Geoff Keighley and company need to do right by the talented, hard-working folks in the industry that The Game Awards represents, and I hope the reception to this year’s show was a wake-up call. Criticism from fans, outlets (including us), and devs has all been very loud and very clear.

Vincke capped off the thread by reminding readers that Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on Xbox Series X|S. Though it launched on PC on August 3 and on PS5 on September 6, the Xbox version was delayed due to issues with split screen co-op on the Xbox Series S. Larian went on to work out an agreement with Microsoft in which it could omit split screen from the Series S version and still release the game on Xbox.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PS5. It stands tall as one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of 2023 (and also, all time), and is a must-play for fans of fantasy RPGs and the D&D universe.