Craig Mazin has conquered post-apocalyptic zombies and nuclear disasters on screen. Now he’s setting his sights on something arguably more complex: the sprawling, choice-driven world of Baldur’s Gate. The showrunner behind HBO’s The Last of Us and Chernobyl is developing a TV series based on the beloved fantasy RPG franchise, picking up right where the games left off.
It’s the kind of news that should have fans celebrating. Mazin has proven he can adapt game worlds with care and complexity. He claims to have sunk nearly 1,000 hours into Baldur’s Gate 3, which speaks to genuine passion rather than a quick cash grab. The man calls himself a “devoted D&D fan,” and given that the Baldur’s Gate series lives and breathes Dungeons & Dragons lore, that’s not nothing.
The Larian-Shaped Hole in the Room
But here’s where things get complicated. Larian Studios, the developers who turned Baldur’s Gate 3 into a 2023 phenomenon with over 20 million copies sold and a historic sweep of all five major Game of the Year awards, won’t be directly involved in the show’s production.
The intellectual property belongs to Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, which means legally Mazin can move forward without Larian touching a single script. Larian founder Swen Vincke posted diplomatically about the news, saying his team worked “incredibly hard” to make BG3 worthy of its legacy and expressing hope the adaptation would receive similar passion. Mazin did reach out for a chat, so there’s at least some line of communication open.
Still, fans aren’t exactly thrilled. The technology forums and social media threads are filled with cautious skepticism at best and outright hostility at worst. “Not sure if I trust anyone other than Larian with those characters,” one fan wrote. Another called the combination of no Larian involvement and Craig Mazin “crazy.”
Why Fans Are Right to Be Nervous
The comparison to other recent game adaptations is inevitable. Both Fallout and The Last of Us brought developers from the original games into their production teams. That collaborative approach helped preserve the soul of those worlds while translating them to a new medium. The Last of Us had Neil Druckmann working alongside Mazin. That partnership felt like insurance against losing what made the source material special.
Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t just a game with a story. It’s a game with roughly 17,000 different ending variations depending on player choices. It’s a world where character agency matters more than linear narrative. The entire appeal rests on the illusion that your decisions shape everything. How do you translate that to television, where viewers sit passively watching one specific version of events unfold?
Mazin does have one advantage: he’s planning to reach out to the original voice cast with ideas for how they might participate. That’s smart. Those performances brought characters like Astarion, Shadowheart, and Karlach to life in ways that transcended typical video game voice acting. If Neil Newbon returns as Astarion in any capacity, that alone might calm some nerves.
The Second Season Problem
There’s another elephant in the room that fans keep bringing up. The second season of The Last of Us has attracted criticism for certain creative directions Mazin took. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say not everyone was thrilled with how he handled certain beloved moments from the source material. That business of adaptation is tricky, and even talented showrunners make choices that divide audiences.
Eurogamer journalist Vikki Blake suggested cautious optimism might be warranted given Mazin’s track record and D&D credentials. She’s probably right that someone with his experience wouldn’t take this on without confidence. Then again, confidence doesn’t always equal success when dealing with passionate fandoms who’ve spent hundreds of hours inhabiting these characters.
The real question isn’t whether Mazin can make good television. He clearly can. The question is whether he can capture what makes Baldur’s Gate feel like Baldur’s Gate without the people who actually created that feeling sitting in the writers’ room. Maybe a phone call with Swen Vincke will be enough. Maybe it won’t.
