James Ohlen, former lead on new sci-fi RPG Exodus and boss of the studio Archetype Entertainment, has plenty of experience delivering great video games. He was a lead designer on Baldur's Gate II, and so Hasbro - Archetype's owner - thought he and his team would be a great fit for the upcoming Baldur's Gate 4.
Ohlen, as he told PC Gamer, had different ideas. "The day [Chris Cox, Hasbro CEO] knew they weren't going to do it, he called me. 'Hey James, what do you think about doing Baldur's Gate 4?' And I was like, 'I don't, I would fail, and here's why I would fail,'" he said.
"I wouldn't want to compete against that. Doing Exodus is hard enough, but having to compete against Baldur's Gate 3? That would be insanity," Ohlen continued, explaining that Larian really had lightning in a bottle for Baldur's Gate III, not just because it landed at a perfect time, but that it made great use of Larian's engine,, which had been developed through multiple iterations to allow the level of freedom we saw in Baldur's Gate III. "Swen's always going to be the master of building those kinds of things. It's really hard to take him off that throne, just because of everything—the tools, institutional knowledge, team," Ohlen said.
So, if Archetype Entertainment said no to the job, and were asked around two years ago, then who does Ohlen think would be perfect for it? According to him, it should be someone who is fresh and thinks they can do everything different and better than their competitors. "That was me back in Baldur's Gate. I was like 'Everyone else sucks and we're going to crush it.' It was us against all the other game studios, we're going to outdo them. And because none of us had built games before, we were all like, 'We're going to do everything different.' And sometimes you need that."