After Grossing Out Everyone At The Game Awards, Larian Says Divinity Isn’t “Trying To Shock” People
Joshua Robertson is a News Editor for TheGamer. When not writing about breaking news, community stories, or covering industry events, you can find him begging FromSoftware for a Bloodborne remaster.
Last week, Larian revealed that its next game after Baldur’s Gate 3 will be Divinity, and to say that the trailer was a little bit gruesome would be an understatement. Every single bodily fluid you could imagine was present in Divinity’s big reveal, as a man puked into a pig pen (and then again not moments later), a different man was burned alive inside a large wooden effigy, which was surrounded by lizards and women getting busy. You’d expect nothing less from what some believe to be a Satan summoning ritual.
I actually can’t remember a more disturbing reveal trailer off the top of my head. I can remember plenty of blood-filled trailers, there were plenty after and before Divinity was revealed, but when it comes to unrelenting grossness, nothing more intense really comes to mind. It definitely caused a few people to feel a little uncomfortable, as reactions began pouring out online quicker than the blood that poured out of that burning man’s back.
Larian Says It Isn t Trying To Shock People With Divinity s Gross Trailer
Now that we’ve been left to sit on that trailer for a few days, Larian itself has waded into conversations surrounding the trailer in the form of publishing director Michael Douse (thanks IGN). In a tweet claiming that Larian was so great because it’s “not afraid to push boundaries”, using Divinity’s gruesome trailer as proof, Douse says that the studio wasn’t “trying to shock” its audience with the trailer, but rather it was “trying to match their powers of comprehension”.
He says that the phrase “treating the audience with a level of intellectual respect” came up during the planning stage of the game, and that Larian recognizes that its fanbase is “capable of appreciating a three-dimensional world.”
Larian Studios has announced the game that will follow in the footsteps of Baldur’s Gate 3.
That’s basically a lot of fancy words to say that Larian knows it has a mature audience, and it’s simply creating its new game with that in mind. It’s been reflected pretty well in the game’s reveal trailer, which has people talking and debating pretty heavily, so you could argue that it’s definitely done its job as a piece of marketing, at the very least.
Divinity isn’t going to be a game in which the whole world is in need of a hero to save them, like a Skyrim or a Final Fantasy. It’s a fantasy setting that is dark, foreboding, and also a little bit disgusting, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Larian fans both want and expect from the studio after Baldur’s Gate 3.
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I adore Larian, but this take verges on gaslighting. They chose one dimension – the shock and grossout dimension – and they nailed it and should own it. No one in that room was saying, “You know what would really respect the players’ intellect? Showing a closeup of a pig eating fresh vomit.” Their goal was explicitly to shock and get talked about. They succeeded. Take the win.
The whole “Don’t hold back or sanitize” thing really made me laugh. So… your lives are just normally chock full of men screaming as the flesh sizzles off his bones, are they? You’re not being realistic if your story doesn’t feature these things? Just say you find gore and horror cool. It’s okay We need no special “powers of perception” to share your particular tastes.
Just have some integrity. Pretending it’s there to be “respectful of intellects” is what insults our intelligence.
2025-12-16 15:37:17
my mom was in the room when that trailer came on.
I moved upstairs afterwards.
2025-12-16 20:31:55
Love Larian games, but can’t say that my intellect feels respected by being super grossed out. Weird thing to say.
2025-12-16 15:50:07
