Watch out! You can die in the first 15 seconds of Baldur's Gate 3
"If you don’t pay attention you will dissolve in acid, right there on the spot where you spawn"
In Baldur's Gate 3, you'll be able to play as an almost-vampire. His name is Astarion, and he's technically a vampire spawn rather than a fully-fledged blood sucker, but like vampires across all sorts of fantasy media, he can't go into places without being specifically invited and, more importantly, he can't cross running water. Unfortunately for Astarion, there just so happens to be a large river right next to where you spawn in the very first section of Baldur's Gate 3. According to the game's lead systems designer, Nick Pechenin, it's possible to kill the poor vamp within 15 seconds of spawning in.
"If you’re not careful you can die in Baldur’s Gate 3 as Astarion in the first 15 seconds of the game," he told RPS VidBud Matthew. "If you click on the river, that’s the Chionthar river that's going past you, and if you just don’t pay attention you will dissolve in acid, right there on the spot where you spawn."
Not ideal. Who's idea was it to make vampires so squishy? Being weak to sunlight and impoliteness sounds silly enough, I didn't even know they couldn't hack a bit of water until today.
Pechenin tells Matthew the devs at Larian had to go through every single piece of water in the game to figure out what was running and what was still. Can you imagine if they missed any? The crushing defeat of death as the hundred year-old vamp wanders aimlessly through a puddle.
All jokes aside, the mechanics behind the vampires in BG3 aren't too harsh. For example, with the whole "invitation" thing Astarion won't need to ask everyone he meets if he's allowed into their houses. Instead, he'll get an invitation to enter a whole settlement, so you're not banging on every door asking to come in.
"At the start of the game there is a settlement that you help repel an attack from goblins," Pechenin says, "and they kind of shout 'come on in, more goblins coming' and Astarion goes 'Ah! I’m invited!'"
There are plenty more juicy Baldur's Gate details Pechenin tells Matthew in his interview, and you can hear all about them in the video below:
Baldur's Gate 3 will (maybe) hit early access next month, and there's loads of gameplay footage you can entertain yourself with in the meantime.