Baldur’s Village is a fan expansion that adds the characters from Dungeons & Dragons RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 to the cozy, pixel art farming sim Stardew Valley. The head of Larian Studios, which made Baldur’s Gate 3, thought it was really cool. But Wizards of the Coast, who owns the D&D license? Not so much. The tabletop game maker hit the fan mod with a takedown notice and it’s no longer available to download.
Created by NexusMods user BV and uploaded on March 8, Baldur’s Village added over 20 characters from the 2023 GOTY winner to the farming sim, along with new locations, shops, special items, dynamic story events, and other content. “So much love went into this—amazing work!” Larian CEO and BG3 director Swen Vincke wrote at the time.
But the fan mashup of two beloved games is no longer available to download on Nexus. “This mod is under moderation review,” reads a disclaimer added to the page on March 29. According to a spokesperson for the mod database, Wizards of the Coast was responsible for sending a DMCA takedown notice against the fan content for infringing on its ownership of Dungeons & Dragons, which Baldur’s Gate 3 is based on.
“This is an incredibly creative cross-over to Stardew Valley that the community loves,” the rep told PC gamer, adding that the Larian boss’ original endorsement “was nothing less than we would expect from the Larian CEO, who has been such a refreshing and visionary leader.” They continued, “Hopefully, this is an oversight from WotC, who often use external agencies to hunt down violating content, and they will revert their decision. Fingers crossed for Baldur’s Village.”
Larian Studios decided to move on to other projects instead of making Baldur’s Gate 4, and an executive at Hasbro, which owns Wizards of the Coast, recently told fans the company is taking its time with the project but will have details to begin sharing soon. “We’re going to take a very measured approach,” VP of digital games Dan Ayoub told IGN earlier this month. “We’ve got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We’re starting to think about, okay, yeah, we’re ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we’re going to have some other things to talk about around that.”
Apparently someone at Hasbro or Wizards thinks a fan mashup of BG3 and one of the most popular games of all time in a non-competing genre might get in the way of whatever it’s doing with the franchise. Vincke wasn’t impressed with the move. “Free quality fan mods highlighting your characters in other game genres are proof your work resonates and a unique form of word of mouth,” he wrote on Monday. “Imho they shouldn’t be treated like commercial ventures that infringe on your property.”
He continued, “Protecting your IP can be tricky but I do hope this gets settled. There are good ways of dealing with this.”
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