Jack Coleman (He/Him) is a News Editor from Ireland. This is his third full year in games media, having previously worked freelance for various outlets, including DualShockers and NME.
Previously, he’s interviewed breakout indie developers, broken big news stories, reviewed massive releases and recounted his time living as a humble woodsman in Oblivion.
A lifelong gamer, Jack is primarily interested in RPGs and narrative experiences. He’s also been playing League of Legends for a decade, unfortunately.
Larian Studios never seemed likely to abandon the turn-based combat of Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, by far the studio’s two most successful releases. However, the majority of entries in the Divinity series are action role-playing games, so many wondered if Larian would be bold enough to return to that genre in its upcoming game.
The series has never had an entry called simply ‘Divinity’ until now, as the series began with Divine Divinity in 2002. Divinity: Original Sin is a prequel to Divine Divinity.
While we won’t know for sure until Larian reveals the game’s combat, we can infer from a recent job listing that the studio is looking for combat designers with turn-based combat experience.
Wait Your Turn
As spotted by Kaphh on Reddit, a Larian job spec for Combat Designer includes the line, “3 years experience in a design position with a solid understanding of how combat encounters work; turn-based experience a plus.”
This listing first went up in September 2025, making it exceedingly unlikely that the role was intended to fill a position on Baldur’s Gate 3’s skeleton development team. We know Larian is working on two projects simultaneously, but the non-Divinity project will likely remain in pre-production for several years and, as such, won’t require a dedicated combat designer for some time.
Larian has responded to reactions over Divinity’s rather gruesome reveal trailer.
With all this in mind, one can only conclude that Larian is hiring a combat designer for Divinity, and the studio would prefer the hire to have experience in designing turn-based combat. It seemed obvious that Divinity will be turn-based, and this job listing is additional evidence supporting that conclusion.
Of course, there are many flavours of turn-based combat. Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 are completely different, for instance. Original Sin 2 uses an Action Point (AP) system that gives characters far more flexibility on their turns when compared to the restrictive Action Bonus Action system of Dungeons Dragons and, consequently, Baldur’s Gate 3.
I don’t foresee any real-time combat twist in Divinity because one of the reasons that Baldur’s Gate 3 is so popular is because of the accessibility offered by turn-based combat. Players turned off by stressful real-time combat are more likely to try an RPG where they aren’t under any time pressure while playing.
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