After being delayed earlier this month, Larian Studios has officially announced that Baldur’s Gate III is scheduled to enter Early Access next month on September 30. The announcement was made on special livestream dubbed the Panel From Hell, where various developers from the studio discussed the game in some form or another. It was also revealed that the title will also be coming to Steam as well as Stadia, Google’s cloud-based streaming platform, both of which will be getting the game in the form of Early Access to boot.
The Early Access version of the game will have five characters to play as, which includes special customizable options as well. Players will be able to choose between 5 distinct characters, each with their own abilities and traits such as human wizard, an elf-rouge, a cleric, and a githyanki warrior. Larian also stated that there will be more characters announced throughout Early Access, building up the roster as the game takes form.
Baldur’s Gate III Early Access will contain a very early version of the game’s first act, as the studio will continue to build and create the remainder of the other acts simultaneously. To put this in perspective, Larian Studios outlined a comparison between the Early Access of Baldur’s Gate III and their other title Divinity: Original Sin 2. For instance, in Divinity: Original Sin 2’s Early Access, there were 22 combat encounters, 17,600 lines of English dialogue, 142 characters, and 69 spells. Baldur’s Gate III’s Early Access will have 80 encounters, roughly 45,000 lines of dialogue, 596 characters, and 146 spells and actions.
It’s very apparent that Larian is going all out with Baldur’s Gate III. The studio made it clear that there’s still a lot of work to be done, but hopefully, that doesn’t mean another postponement. The game was originally going to be put into Early Access at the beginning of this month. Despite no actual date for August, Larian was still aiming to make the aforementioned timeframe. Unfortunately, they ended up delaying the game’s Early Access, but thankfully not by much. Everyone is looking forward to the newest sequel of the series since 2004, and we can’t wait to get our hands on this one either.
Baldur’s Gate III is scheduled to enter Early Access on September 30 for PC through Steam and Stadia.