Baldur's Gate 3 ventures into early access next month
Venture forth, travellers.
Gather your party, travellers. Taking a break from sucking toes and chatting up brains during today's devilishly strange Panel From Hell, Larian have finally put a date on Baldur's Gate 3's early access launch. Assuming there's no further delay, the grand fantasy romp should venture forth on its quest on September 30th.
Larian announced the release date during their "Panel From Hell", a big dev dive with creative director Sven Vinke, Geoff Keighley, WOTC's Chris Perkins and some dork called "Adam Smith" (RPS in peace). Waiting for the date to drop and between shoutouts to different monsters and features, we also got a prolonged sequence of a character, uh, kissing a Goblin's foot. Lovely.
But between some NSFW adventuring, we also got a few deets on what we can expect from Baldur's Gate's early access launch. While the full game may not cap itself at level ten, you can expect to top out at level four at first - far enough you give you a taste at feats and more challenging adventures, Larian reckon. There'll also be full four-player co-op online and five companions to meet at first, with the team figuring there are over 45,000 lines of dialogue in this first release.
Vinke expects the game to remain in early access for a while, and as Vinke puts it, "isn't for people who want a finished, polished game". It'll be a similar structure to Divinity: Original Sin 2's time in early access, seeing the game shift and change as the team receive feedback on what's working and what's not. An odd track for a massive singleplayer RPG, sure, but one Larian have made work before.
Baldur's Gate 3 launches in Steam early access on September 30th.
Disclosure: Yes, the Adam Smith currently acting as senior writer at Larian is the same Adam Smith wot used to work for RPS. Small world, innit.