Divinity Engine is a game engine developed by Larian Studios. [1] It has undergone several iterations, with the latest version being Divinity Engine 4.0 developed for Baldur's Gate 3 . [2]
Larian began development of Divinity Engine 1 for its game Divinity: Original Sin on a budget of only a few million dollars. [1] Larian included a copy of the Divinity 1.0 Engine with Divinity: Original Sin for some Kickstarter backers, allowing them to make custom mods. [1] To showcase the abilities of the engine, Larian included a "cow simulator" game made with the Divinity Engine Toolkit in its early access release. [3] [4]
Divinity Engine 2 was developed for Divinity: Original Sin II . [5] Divinity Engine 2, along with all the in-house tools Larian developed such as for making levels, was included in the game files as "DivinityEngine2.exe". [5] [6] It had a focus of improving existing tools from Divinity Engine 1 as well as creating new tools and improving documentation. [5] The engine has also been referred to as "Divinity Engine 3.0." [7]
Divinity Engine 4.0 was developed for Baldur's Gate 3 . [2] [8] It included a Vulkan backend which was used as an option in Baldur's Gate 3 alongside the DirectX 11 backend. [9] [2] The modding tools included with Baldur's Gate 3 were not as extensive as those included in previous Larian games. [10] Larian developers attributed part of the game's success with their continued use of Divinity Engine as opposed to using a commercial engine such as Unreal Engine, having used and worked on the engine since 2010 while with commercial engines "the engine's roadmap is not necessarily your roadmap". [11]
Baldur's Gate is a series of role-playing video games set in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The series has been divided into two sub-series, known as the Bhaalspawn Saga and the Dark Alliance, both taking place mostly within the Western Heartlands, but the Bhaalspawn Saga extends to Amn and Tethyr. The Dark Alliance series was released for consoles and was critically and commercially successful. The Bhaalspawn Saga was critically acclaimed for using pausable realtime gameplay, which is credited with revitalizing the computer role-playing game (CRPG) genre.
Video game modding is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves, and is a sub-discipline of general modding. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls, and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.
The Quake engine is the game engine developed by id Software to power their 1996 video game Quake. It featured true 3D real-time rendering. Since 1999, it has been licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.
Divine Divinity is an action role-playing game developed by Larian Studios and published by cdv Software Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, which was released in August 2002. It has three sequels, Beyond Divinity, Divinity II, and Divinity: Original Sin II. It also has a prequel, Divinity: Original Sin, and a spin-off, Divinity: Dragon Commander. The game was released for Mac OS X on 15 November 2013.
Minerva is an episodic series of single-player modifications ("mods") for Valve's Half-Life 2. The mod was created by Adam Foster. The plot and settings of Minerva are linked to Someplace Else, Foster's original map for Half-Life, and to Half-Life 2. The mod was released on Steam on April 30, 2013.
Larian Studios is a Belgian independent video game developer and publisher founded in 1996 by Swen Vincke. Headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, Larian focuses on developing role-playing video games but has previously worked on educational games and casino games. It is best known for developing the Divinity series and Baldur's Gate 3.
Garry's Mod is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of Garry's Mod has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other game modes, notably Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt, are created by other developers as mods and are installed separately, by means such as the Steam Workshop. Garry's Mod was created by Garry Newman as a mod for Valve's Source game engine and released in December 2004, before being expanded into a standalone release that was published by Valve in November 2006. Ports of the original Windows version for Mac OS X and Linux followed in September 2010 and June 2013, respectively. As of September 2021, Garry's Mod has sold more than 20 million copies. A successor, Sandbox, has been in development since 2015.
Divinity: Original Sin is a role-playing video game developed and published by Larian Studios. The fourth main entry in the Divinity game series, it is a prequel to the original game Divine Divinity, and to the other main games in the series. It was first released on Microsoft Windows on 30 June 2014.
Divinity: Dragon Commander is a real-time strategy video game developed by Larian Studios as part of the Divinity series of fantasy role-playing games. The game features a hybrid of gameplay styles and has single-player, competitive multiplayer and cooperative multiplayer modes.
Swen Johan Vincke is a Belgian video game designer, programmer and director. He is the founder and CEO of the video game company Larian Studios, where he has led the development of the Divinity series and Baldur's Gate 3.
Tabletop Simulator is an independent video game that allows players to play and create tabletop games in a multiplayer physics sandbox. Developed by Berserk Games as their first title after a successful crowdfunding campaign in February 2014, the game was released in June of the following year.
Divinity: Original Sin II is a role-playing video game developed and published by Larian Studios. The sequel to 2014's Divinity: Original Sin and the fifth main entry in the Divinity series, the game was released for Microsoft Windows in September 2017. The player controls a "Godwoken", a Sourcerer who can harness and use a powerful magic known as Source, and becomes a pivotal figure in the fight against the Voidwoken, monstrous creatures who wreak havoc in the medieval fantasy world of Rivellon.
Long War is a fan-made partial conversion mod for the turn-based tactics video game XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within. It was first released in early 2013, and it exited beta at the end of 2015. Almost every aspect of the original game is altered, creating a longer, more complex campaign that presents players with more strategic choices and customization options. Long War adds a significant number of new soldier classes, abilities, weapons, armors, and usable items, and also introduces new features, including soldier fatigue and improvements to alien units over the course of the game.
Based on id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a 2023 role-playing video game developed and published by Larian Studios. It is the third main installment to the Baldur's Gate series, based on the tabletop fantasy role-playing system of Dungeons & Dragons. A partial version of the game was released in early access format for macOS and Windows in October 2020. It remained in early access until its full release for Windows in August 2023, with versions for PlayStation 5, macOS, and Xbox Series X/S releasing later that year.
Divinity is a role-playing video game series developed by Larian Studios. The franchise was introduced in 2002 with Divine Divinity. The franchise received more mainstream attention following the critically and commercially successful release of Divinity: Original Sin (2014).
The Dark Urge is a character from the 2023 video game Baldur's Gate 3, a role-playing video game by Larian Studios set in the Forgotten Realms universe of Dungeons & Dragons. Designated as an "Origin" character, the player can select to play through the game from their perspective. Unlike other Origin characters, the Dark Urge's appearance, voice, gender, and class can be customized if the player chooses. By default, the Dark Urge is a male White Dragonborn Sorcerer, voiced by Neil Roberts.
Borislav Slavov is a Bulgarian composer. He has composed for a number of video games, including for Crytek's Crysis series and Larian Studios' Divinity: Original Sin II and Baldur's Gate 3.
Skald: Against the Black Priory is a 2024 role-playing video game developed by High North Studios and published by Raw Fury Games. It has a retro style influenced by the 1980s Ultima games. Players attempt to find a lost friend in a cursed land overrun with Lovecraftian monsters.