An occasionally ribald interview with Larian Studios about Divinity

Wait, the game does what?

Images in this article are from Larian’s Divinity trailer, as captured by the studio. They do not show gameplay.

Two weeks ago in Los Angeles, at the end of a late-night interview with three senior members of Larian Studios about their just-announced new game, Divinity, I asked them if I’d asked any questions that a parade of previous interviewers had not.

Studio founder Swen Vincke wasn’t 100% sure about my questions, but he was sure he’d given me an original (and fairly risqué) quote.

“We certainly have never said the game will come in front of you, before,” he said.

Yes, they said that, with the very suggestion you might be reading into it. No, they had not been serious—that’s not an officially supported feature.

Nevertheless: Over the course of an 18-minute chat that night, a trio of senior Larian game makers had bantered with me about Divinity in an interview that was colorful, informative and featured an ample amount of double entendre.

We spoke about how Larian operates, about the current state of the new Divinity, and about their goals. We discussed Vincke’s quality standards and the blunt thing he says when those standards aren’t met. I walked away with a much better understanding of what makes the braintrust at Larian tick.

(Note: We did not discuss generative AI, and this interview preceded a storm of discussion about Larian’s use of the tech. More on that below.)

I conducted the interview on the roof deck of a small poolside building rented by Larian in downtown Los Angeles. My voice was hoarse, my body was still on east coast time and the Larian folks might have been punchy from doing so many interviews. Seated at a ring of couches and chairs, I chatted with Vincke, Larian’s founder and the game director of Divinity, along with Larian head writer Adam Smith and Divinity lead writer Chrystal Ding.

At the start, I told the trio that I respected Larian’s work but confessed that I had not played much of their games—yet. (This becomes relevant in the interview at one point, as you’ll see).

As we began the interview, I handed my phone to Vincke and showed him something he’d said a year ago.