15 million copies sold: Baldur’s Gate 3 and the power of knowledge reuse

Introduction

When playing a new video game, we often notice familiar elements from previous games in its design, mechanics, or technology. Many successful games build upon past knowledge while introducing fresh innovations. This approach, known as knowledge reuse¹ plays a crucial role in game development.

Baldur‘s Gate 3 (BG3) has been developed by Larian Studios. Released in 2023, the game became a massive success, selling over 15 million copies and generating $270 million² in pre-tax profit. It also won six awards at The Game Awards (TGA)³ often called the ‘Oscars of gaming’.

Much of this success stems from Larian Studios’ effective reuse of knowledge. They incorporated core mechanics, combat systems, and narrative depth from Divinity: Original Sin 2 (DOS2) while refining and expanding them for the Baldur’s Gate universe. This strategic reuse balanced continuity with innovation, elevating both gameplay quality and player engagement.

The SECI model: driving knowledge transformation

In knowledge-intensive industries like game development, knowledge reuse improves efficiency, the four stages of the SECI model⁴ help us understand how past knowledge and experience were transformed, shared, and applied to new projects, ultimately fostering effective knowledge reuse.

1. Socialization – sharing and transferring tacit knowledge

This stage primarily focuses on the transfer of tacit knowledge, which refers to knowledge that is challenging to articulate or codify, such as personal experience.

Informal communication facilitates the movement of tacit knowledge among the team members, particularly concerning the reuse of knowledge. Imagine that members of BG3 development team had previously worked on DOS2, an earlier game from Larian Studios. They collaborated and discussed their experiences with game design and personal insights with the designers of BG3. This exchange of tacit knowledge benefited the team not only to familiarize itself to the new project but also to carry forward some elements and philosophies of design from their previous work.

Over-reliance on social methods for knowledge reuse can lead to knowledge loss when key individuals leave. An instance well known in the gaming industry is Hideo Kojima’s exit from Konami⁵; it drastically altered Metal Gear Solid and was received poorly. His following game⁶, Death Stranding, carried his hallmark touch and turned out to be a major success, underlining the importance of tacit knowledge in game design. Unlike this case, Larian Studios does not operate based on one key person. Instead, it follows a more formalized knowledge management system that minimizes such disruption risks.

2. Externalization – transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge

The core of the externalization phase is converting personal experience into explicit knowledge that can be systematized, codified, and easily transferred, such as documented processes. This ensures systematic storage, enabling team members to reuse and refine knowledge efficiently.

In BG3‘s development, Larian Studios documented designers’ and programmers’ experiences through game design documents (GDD), standard operating procedures (SOP), and code comments to ensure unified standards. This approach minimized balance issues caused by individual experience differences, enabling the team to follow consistent guidelines.

Additionally, code reuse is a common externalization method in game development. Senior programmers’ coding styles and logic are documented in development manuals and code libraries for future projects. Larian Studios directly reused the combat system, dialogue tree, and environmental interactions (e.g., fire creating steam when meeting water) from DOS2 in BG3. This enhanced efficiency while preserving a sense of familiarity with the previous game.

3. Combination – integration and optimization of explicit knowledge

In an effective knowledge management system, the combination stage is crucial. It involves integrating and optimizing multiple sources of explicit knowledge, ensuring that externalized knowledge can be efficiently reused across teams without redundancy or confusion.

BG3 was conceived as Larian Studios would explicitly share and integrate explicit knowledge from previous games into a unified framework, particularly evident in the modularity of their game engine. Since most game development’s coding is repetitive work, standardization of key engine modules was done to allows faster working with further projects by means of reusing parts and reducing the need to create new systems from scratch, thereby increasing the efficiency of development.

In addition to that, the reuse of art assets and animations is an integral part of the game iterative process. Big gaming companies prefer asset libraries, and the integration stage must achieve a delicate balance between bread and butter word content reuse and unadulterated creation of new innovative assets. Their extreme over-standardisation of each step can kill creativity⁷, leaving new games seeming less unusual. Therefore, Larian Studios, doing a great deal of repetition in terms of technical repetitive tasks, but they can afford the freedom on the game setting and the artistic type of work. Such a system allow the teams to do this at scale, while also enabling the studio to efficiently integrate knowledge, minimize redundant work, and enhance development efficiency without compromising game quality.

4. Internalization – explicit knowledge is transformed into tacit knowledge

The last phase is bringing the explicit knowledge back as tacit knowledge. With practice, reflection, and application, explicit knowledge is grounded in personal experience and team culture and, ultimately, morphs into gut-feel and skills.

This is an important measure to see which members internalised knowledge to the fullest and used it accordingly for future projects. For example, the Larian team internalized their understanding of their previous game DOS2‘s combat rules through continuous practice and testing throughout development. Over time, designers and developers no longer needed to repeatedly reference rulebooks as they could intuitively adjust values, AI behavior, and combat mechanics. When these processes become second nature in decision-making, knowledge has been fully internalized.

Another example is game designers mastering game pacing. While design manuals outline basic principles, the true sense of pacing can only be developed through experience. Larian Studios’ ‘System-Driven’ design philosophy⁸, originally established by Swen Vincke, has since become a core part of the team’s approach. Team members gradually grasp and apply this philosophy through hands-on project experience rather than relying solely on design documents. As a result, once knowledge is internalized, developers move beyond simply replicating past experiences, they will build upon them to drive innovation.

Conclusion

The success of Baldur’s Gate 3 demonstrates that knowledge reuse not only accelerates development but also enhances efficiency, consistency, and innovation. Larian Studios effectively applied the SECI model to transform, document, integrate, and internalize knowledge across multiple projects. By strategically combining knowledge reuse with innovation, the studio has shown how structured knowledge management can drive breakthrough success in the gaming industry.

Article source: Adapted from 15M Copies Sold: Baldur’s Gate 3 and the Power of Knowledge Reuse, prepared as part of the requirements for completion of course KM6304 Knowledge Management Strategies and Policies in the Nanyang Technological University Singapore Master of Science in Knowledge Management (KM).

Header image source: Screenshot from Baldur’s Gate 3.

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