Game News Baldur's Gate 3 now available on Early Access

[Infinitron]

Tags: Baldur's Gate 3; Larian Studios

It's been sixteen months since Larian announced that they were making Baldur's Gate 3, the game that has become the most frenziedly discussed upcoming RPG on our forum since the original Pillars of Eternity. We learned very early on that the game would be arriving on Early Access at some point. That took longer than anybody expected due to the covid pandemic, but today it's finally here. Without further ado, here is the launch trailer:

​

Larian gave the press Earlier Access to the Early Access build and a large number of outlets published their previews when it launched. The previews are mostly positive as you'd expect, though many of them note that the game is still a bit buggy (shoutout to that one guy at Ars Technica who absolutely hated it!). Here's the full list of previews:

Ars Technica
CNET
Comics Gaming Magazine
Cultured Vultures
Den of Geek
Eurogamer
Fextralife
Game Informer
Gamepressure
GameSpew
GameSpot
GamesRadar+
God is a Geek
Hardcore Gamer
IGN
Kotaku
Metro
NME
PC Gamer
PCGamesN
Polygon
Rock Paper Shotgun
RPG Site
Shacknews
TheGamer
TheSixthAxis
Trusted Reviews
VentureBeat​

Baldur's Gate 3 is available on Steam and GOG for a full $60, a price tag that was apparently not high enough to prevent the game from crashing Steam due to its popularity. I'm not sure Codexers will be as enthusiastic, but hopefully we will soon find out whether it was really worth all that sound and fury.

 

[Lord Kane]

Early access for $60. They really know how to milk their fanboys

 

[Whisper]

Must buy for me.

 

[Tyrr]

I hope that lady's nose is still work in progress and she gets a real one after the early access.

 

[Narg]

If the story is good and the companions are interesting, then I might ignore the fact that this is just D:OS2 reskin. I really hope that Larian can make something special out of this, I'm just sad that we will not get a proper Baldur's Gate sequel.

 

[Bah]

We already did get a proper Baldur's Gate sequel. It's called Baldur's Gate 2.

 

[zerotol]

What a world we live in. It used to be, now it's early access buy aka pay the full price for an unfinished product.

 

[Ol'man]

Having tool'd around with Wrath (a lot) and BG3 (obviously not, but first impression) it already feels like Owlcat's Wrath is the BG3 and Larian's BG3 is the turn off your brain cinematic experience but not necessarily in a Bad way, if that makes any sense.

 

[Tyrr]

Having tool'd around with Wrath (a lot) and BG3 (obviously not, but first impression) it already feels like Owlcat's Wrath is the BG3 and Larian's BG3 is the turn off your brain cinematic experience but not necessarily in a Bad way, if that makes any sense.

Was this even developed as BG3 from the start? Or did they started making D:OS3, got the BG license later and just slapped it on?

 

[Ol'man]

Having tool'd around with Wrath (a lot) and BG3 (obviously not, but first impression) it already feels like Owlcat's Wrath is the BG3 and Larian's BG3 is the turn off your brain cinematic experience but not necessarily in a Bad way, if that makes any sense.

Was this even developed as BG3 from the start? Or did they started making D:OS3, got the BG license later and just slapped it on?

It feels like they were designing BG3 from the start but too epic from the get go. You can feel DOS through the engine although it's obvious they've made a lot of efforts to tamper that down from cartoony to serious but some things (jumping, man) feel like a paint job.

Everyone having cunning action speeds things up enough in combat not too fully alienate the rtwp crowd but some 5e purists will grind their teeth. I can already see that being changed in a mod.

 

[Morality Games]

There are 5e purists? I thought everyone just used it as a template for homebrew.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

havent played any of the baldurs gate games

the inevitable shitshow coming up MAY encourage me to install the first one

apparently it was quite the game back in the day

 

[Tyrr]

havent played any of the baldurs gate games

the inevitable shitshow coming up MAY encourage me to install the first one

apparently it was quite the game back in the day

If you plan to play the "enhanced" editions, get a mod to remove the fanfiction NPCs that Beamdog added to the games.

And stay away from Siege of Dragonspear. Far far away.

 

[Ol'man]

There are 5e purists? I thought everyone just used it as a template for homebrew.

I bet over half of d&d players have only played 5e.

There has to be some poor souls out there that fall into this category.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Early bird catches the turd.

 

[Immortal]

Early access for $60. They really know how to milk their fanboys

I buy maybe 2 or 3 games a year.. including this game.. like the Cuck I am.
I guess I just don't care about 70 bucks that much and want to see the latest cheese wares in baldury doogate.

I have a feeling even this 1/4th finished bug fest is likely to be more enjoyable than PoE 1.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

I'm disappointed by modern games too often to risk playing an unfinished game in 2020, especially at that price.

Spoiler

And InXile games, for example, are still unfinished even as they get released, so you have to wait about half a year more for the inevitable Director's Cut (aka the REAL release)

 

[Konjad]

On one hand I feel tempted to get it and write a quickie, on the other I'm not sure I want to play it... especially for this price.

 

[ArchAngel]

There is no way I am paying 60$ for this

 

[Sin2x]

This game is not a continuation of the franchise no matter what they say. Period.

 

[Tacgnol]

Having tool'd around with Wrath (a lot) and BG3 (obviously not, but first impression) it already feels like Owlcat's Wrath is the BG3 and Larian's BG3 is the turn off your brain cinematic experience but not necessarily in a Bad way, if that makes any sense.

Makes sense. Wrath is more of a niche AA title, this seems very much a AAA title.

They'll be going after the legions of Critical Role fans and hipster "nerds" with this. Such people have zero interest in the originals.

 

[Narg]

Having tool'd around with Wrath (a lot) and BG3 (obviously not, but first impression) it already feels like Owlcat's Wrath is the BG3 and Larian's BG3 is the turn off your brain cinematic experience but not necessarily in a Bad way, if that makes any sense.

I really hope, that they ditch any sort of "management crap" that they had in Kingmaker, and just purely focus on the proper game.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

The game doesn't appeal to me at all, looks like plastic and BG was properly finished in ToB. The only reason to use BG in the name is for marketing. That said I find the Early Access/In Dev model strange. In my opinion early buyers should be rewarded for their investment and their trust in a product that is still in development. There is always a risk with investing in such a game as it's possible it will stay in development limbo for aeons or get abandoned completely. A step-by-step increasing price model should be used, the more features and the more refined the game becomes the higher the price should be. To sell such an early version with only a small part of the game for the same price as the full version doesn't seem right to me.

 

[Elwro]

"I played 15 hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 early access, and I want them back", hehe, nice title.

Ars Technica is a very nice website in general. Thx for your work Infinitron !

 

[Sin2x]

"I played 15 hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 early access, and I want them back", hehe, nice title.

Ars Technica is a very nice website in general. Thx for your work Infinitron !

The site itself is _relatively_ OK, but its comment section is an abhorrent Cuckoldia.

 

[Onimusha]

100% this - imho stay away from Beamdog in general.

I am really trying to like this game. Started DoS2 again on Monday and it is borderline fraud how similar those two are.
Menus, inventory, loot etc. Found more apples in 30min of BG3 than in BG1/2 combined. They brushed up icons a little and pushed
it out.

Doesn't mean that it is a bad game - but asking 60 Euro for a reskin of DoS2 is a bit much. Their fanboys having a field day at the moment nonetheless.
Companions are very subpar so far, the half-elf lady is ok, but the magician I wanted to kill after 10 seconds. The yellow chick should be green, she is
angry 100% of a time - what a great character.

If I just find so much of a whiff of any SJW shit I am out.