BG3 Baldur's Gate 3 News Thread

[Couchpotato]

What defines me is the worry that the game requires 150GB of disk space (as indicated on Steam)! Are they going to give a SSD with their game for free?

Half of that space is probably textures, sounds, videos, and animations. Hopefully they crunch that number down as I foresee the game doubling or tripling in size.

Seems were getting into the MMO range with newer games.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Half of that space is probably textures, sounds, videos, and animations. Hopefully they crunch that number down as I foresee the game doubling or tripling in size.

Seems were getting into the MMO range with newer games.

Well I guess that is inevitable as we move into the future (and I get older and move into the past).

 

[SirJames]

I'd say its mostly audio files of voiceovers in several languages.

 

[Couchpotato]

First 23 Minutes of Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access

Here are a bunch of previews released today for the EA version.

ArsTechnica

Beyond the good looks of the graphics, I haven't found much in Baldur's Gate 3 to recommend it. Your character and party feel like insignificant gnats and are forced by circumstance to do and see awful things that they're not powerful enough to change. This is not a case of "tough moral choices" as seen in Wasteland 3, or in Obsidian's excellent 2016 RPG Tyranny—in Baldur's Gate 3, it feels like you have no agency at all.

IGN

Having played through the first several hours of Baldur’s Gate 3’s Early Access version (which developer Larian says contains roughly 20 hours of content that should be played multiple times to fully appreciate), I can tell you already that this is probably the closest a single-player video game has come to emulating the experience of playing Dungeons & Dragons in a live group. The verbs I can call on at any given time – jump, climb, lift, throw, and so on – allow me to do exactly the kind of clever but ridiculous things I would ask a human Dungeon Master if I can do. It harkens back to ‘90s adventure games in that regard as well, which is awesome. Rather than the simple “no” you would get from most RPGs when you ask if you can skip a combat encounter by blasting your way through a residence to create a side path, Baldur’s Gate 3 will tell you to roll for it.

Gamesradar

Today’s public build is already improved on the one I played yesterday, and Larian has been upfront about the number of bugs players can expect to face in Early Access. But it’s worth emphasising: though Baldur’s Gate 3 might already have as much dialogue and as many distractions as a finished game, it certainly isn’t one.

There will be some for whom the idea of an Early Access RPG feels intrinsically wrong - like racing the Nürburgring while it’s still being paved, or reading a series of epic fantasy novels before knowing whether the author will live to write the last one. There’s no arguing with the fact that, by playing Baldur’s Gate 3 now, you’re embarking on a journey you can’t yet finish.

Yet there’s something positive in that: the limited scope is an invitation to play - really play, to muck about and test the possibilities - rather than simply push to complete yet another RPG. This one’s worth hanging around in.

PCGamer

With its turn-based battles, different art style and focus on systemic shenanigans, Baldur's Gate 3 isn't an attempt to resurrect an old series. It's something new that pushes the systems and creative mayhem from Original Sin and combines them with the rules D&D. And they're perfect together. It's very promising and seems to be heading in the right direction, but should you buy in now? There's a good 25-30 hours of adventuring to be had, full of memorable fights and characters, but you won't be seeing the game at its best. It's already fun, but it's a bit janky, save wipes are guaranteed and, more importantly, you can't yet make a gnome illusionist, so really what's the point?

Kotaku

Yesterday, I spent around five hours with an updated version of the game that contained fewer bugs, but I still encountered a crash, two quest dead ends (one of them attached to a main quest), and all sorts of visual weirdness.

RPS

As a thing to fill time and tickle your brain, Baldur’s Gate 3 early access is a meaty thing. Definitely more filling than the Fort Joy area of Original Sin 2’s early access chunk. Technically, I found it stable, with more egregious evidence of its early status limited to wonky animation transitions and words emanating from closed gobs. At one point a man appeared as a bear, but only in cutscenes. Is that a bug or a feature? I’m not hot on my D&D lore. I also triggered a 26-person battle across an entire settlement which caused the AI to go into minor meltdown, taking up to a minute to work out individual NPC moves, resulting in a painful sight of a 10 minute war as 20 tieflings struggled to murder one remaining halfling. But so it goes – and there’s already been an update to fix some issues.

No, my word of warning goes instead to those who simply want to enjoy the story. By dint of being a first act it threatens to be all dilemma and no consequence. There are immediate consequences – big, messy, reach-for-the-quick-load consequences – but know that the meat of your mulling won’t be answered for some time. If it were not for this job, and having the self-control of four year old at a birthday party (or games journalist presented with a plate of miniburgers at a press event), I would would want to see this enticing story play out in full. Don’t feel pressured to gather your party and venture forth, but based on what I’ve seen, I think that party is in for one hell of a ride when they do.

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Early Access Launch Trailer

It's party time! Baldur's Gate 3 is now available in Early Access on Stadia

More previews also to go with the others I shared above. Just no quote's.

1. CNET
2. Comics Gaming Magazine
3. Cultured Vultures
4. Den of Geek
5. Eurogamer
6. Fextralife
7. Game Informer
8. Gamepressure
9. GameSpew
10. GameSpot
11. GamesRadar+
12. God is a Geek
13. Hardcore Gamer
14. Metro
15. NME
16. PCGamesN
17. RPG Site
18. Shacknews
19. TheGamer
20. TheSixthAxis
21. Trusted Reviews
22. VentureBeat​

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access First Impressions: Should you get BG3 Early Access?

Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access First Impressions: Should you get BG3 Early Access? The much-awaited Early Access for Baldur’s Gate 3 is finally here, and with it many will be looking to know: Should I get early access? What are your first impressions of Baldur’s Gate 3? How does the game compare to Divinity Original Sin, Baldur’s Gate and other D&D content? In this Baldur’s Gate 3 Gameplay & Hands-On First Impressions article we’ll be answering just that.

Baldur's Gate 3 Character Creation in Depth Look

Here's an in depth look at the character creation options in Baldur's Gate 3.

9 Things We Like About Baldur’s Gate 3 So Far (And 1 Thing We Don’t)

Baldur's Gate 3 is officially in early access, and Zoe Delahunty-Light has spent hours upon hours glued to her screen getting her fill of Baldur's Gate 3 gameplay! Here are her thoughts on the first chunk of the game so far, including how good the story, characters, and sidequests truly are - but be warned, for those of you who have been watching the Baldur's Gate 3 trailer on repeat, there is one thing you should be aware of before you start your time with Baldur's Gate 3 Early Acess. Enjoy!

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 Enters Early Access - Steam

Baldur’s Gate 3 is finally ready for you to play it.

Today at 10am PT, we’re going to hit the big green button so you can start playing the start of Baldur’s Gate 3’s Early Access journey, and I can say with confidence each one of the 300 people who helped to make this game, are honored to have you aboard.

We’ll keep this short, because you’ve been patient. The road ahead is going to be exciting, and we’re happy to have you along for the journey. It’ll make us, and the game, stronger. Together, we’ll be a part of creating our deepest, most ambitious RPG yet.

We hope you have fun playing. Since Early Access rolls out what are essentially live development builds, there will be bugs and glitches here and there, but we’ve tried to create a fully cinematic RPG that you can play again and again, with new characters and new permutations, in between our frequent updates.

We hope to see you in the forums, and if you’ve any questions, head to the FAQ.

Until then, join us on social media in celebration of the team, and our players!

Baldur's Gate 3 Races Guide: All Races & Subraces in BG3 Early Access

Baldur's Gate 3 Races Guide: All Races & Subraces in BG3 Early Access, all from in-game content! We had the opportunity to preview BG3 Early Access and we have created several Character Creation Guides to help you get started! Find out all the races available in Baldur's Gate 3, the Sub-race and appearance modifiers, as well as other info on what's in game.

Baldur's Gate 3 Makes Failure Fun

After playing 20 hours of the early access version of Baldur's Gate 3, Dave saw something beyond the spells, goblins and dice rolls and that's how BG3 handles both it's successes and critical failures when it comes to rolling your virtual dice.

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Hotfix #1 - The Journey Begins!

Hello everyone,

We are so thrilled with how many of you are playing Baldur’s Gate 3, and we’re glad Steam was eventually able to accommodate you all. Our servers are keeping up, but just about! We never imagined such a huge influx of players in what we had envisioned being a relatively modest party of Early Access players. But we’re up to the challenge, and we’ve been listening!

We’re still working on the multiplayer issues that some of you are experiencing (and we’re very close to solving several of them), but Hotfix 1 already fixes a number of issues and covers other things you reported.

As a general message, if you’re having difficulty getting the game running, or are experiencing crashes, switch the game to DX11 mode (in the launcher, click the gear), and make sure you have the most up to date graphics drivers.

We also recommend in some cases disabling the Steam / Discord overlays, if you experience slowdowns while activated.

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Hotfix #2 - After the Storm

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your continued support. Playing the game, as well as your reports, is already helping to shape and improve it. We’ll share more information about this in an upcoming community update alongside our first patch, but for now we’ve fixed some of the most common issues reported to us.

Hotfix 2 solves the most frequent crashes and multiplayer issues, but we’re still working on a number of other reported errors in multiplayer. The good news is that the majority of issues reported to us are known, and a large percentage of those already have a fix in the works. Generally, for remaining multiplayer issues, reloading the game and loading the next available save will get you back up and running. Thank you to all who provide us the detail we need to get these fixes out into the wild.

We still recommend launching the game in DX11 mode if you’re experiencing crashes or framerate issues. However, those of you who were experiencing issues streaming with OBS while using the Vulkan API should find this fixed. (You may wish to re-install OBS).

Issues with 2FA (two-factor authentication) on Larian Accounts have been resolved, as well as your ability to create the optional Larian Account. Not to throw shade at anyone, but let’s just say some servers had some catching up to do.

On cross-save: we had previously announced that cross-save, though we have the infrastructure for it, will only be enabled and functioning once all our versions are in sync (across Steam, Mac, GOG, and Stadia). We don’t have an ETA for this yet.

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Hotfix #3 - Theft, Death & Hubris

We’re back with the third hotfix today, addressing a few crash scenarios that definitely aren’t supposed to happen. We also have for you a Frankenstein amalgamation of crowd-sourced character creation, and boy does it look boring!

Firstly, yesterday as a joke we asked you to send us a 3080, because they were too popular for us to buy one (which prevented us from testing those cards internally before launch - all fixed now!). Quite a few of you reached out with sincere requests for how to do that. That was very sweet, thank you for those messages. Keep them! They’re yours. Besides, without your graphics card, how are you going to play BG3?

Before the fixes, let’s share something you’ve created yourselves (this is your own fault) through your choices in character creation. We took the most popular choices in character creation, and recreated this. We thought our analytics system wasn’t working! We checked. It is.

 

[Couchpotato]

Let's Play Baldur's Gate 3 Gameplay

Join Zoe Delahunty-Light and Ian Higton as they delve into Baldur's Gate 3 and try to get rid of the wriggly mind flayer parasite lodged in their brains! Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access has just been released, so it's about time to see what Baldur's Gate 3 gameplay has to offer while also trying their bestest to keep their squishy party alive for as long as possible…everyone join us in praying to the (videogame) dice gods for luck, please!

Baldur’s Gate 3: Tips & Tricks For Early Access

Tips & Tricks for the early access version of Baldur's Gate 3.

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Best Starting Class & Races

Baldur's Gate 3 has a huge number of class and race combos, so we've put together this video covering the best combinations. Will you play as Dwarf fighter? Tiefling Wizard? High Elf Warlock? it's time to gather your party and venture forth.

Play or Pass? Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Impressions

In this quick video, I give my overall impressions of the Early Access of Baldur's Gate III while very briefly discussing the differences between this game and its predecessor - Baldur's Gate II

Every Baldur's Gate 3 Companion (So Far) - Gameinformer

Baldur's Gate 3 is currently available now on Steam as an Early Access title and even though it's just the first act of the game (about 25-30 hours worth of gametime), it's enough to get to know some of the droolworthy companions. While no one can clearly compare to our sassy Astarion, here is every Baldur's Gate 3 companion so far!

 

[Couchpotato]

Larian's Swen Vincke on Baldur's Gate 3's Early Access Release - USGamer

In this week's episode of Axe of the Blood God, we're joined by Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke, who is here to answer all of our questions about Baldur's Gate 3's early access release! [download link here]!

In the course of my interview with Vincke (which starts at around 26:20), we talk about early feedback, turn-based combat vs. real-time with pause, unforgiving dice rolls, and how Larian is going big with its latest RPG. There's a lot to cover, and as usual Swen is a great interview, so don't miss out!

Baldur's Gate 3's Dice Rolls Want Me To Fail - USGamer

The dice rolls change the feel of Larian's RPG foundations. You can't just rely on your skills to carry the day, at least in terms of conversation and choice. It's an additional element of uncertainty to everything you do. Sure, you might have the skills and attributes to get that Medicine roll down to a two or three, but you still might end up rolling a one. Sometimes, the Random Number God smiles upon you, but at least during my first playthrough, it spit on my every move.

It's sort of exciting, to be honest. There's a thrill to uncertainty, which is probably why D&D is a classic game with years of history behind it. I don't want the next Original Sin to rely on the dice, but Baldur's Gate 3 has a different flavor to it; French vanilla instead of natural vanilla. Even with 20 hours into Baldur's Gate 3, I'm just scratching the surface of what's available here, and having gone through Divinity: Original Sin 2's early access period, I'm looking forward to the further improvements to come.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is Going to Change The Way People Play D&D - Cogconnected

In the late 90s, a group of Canadian doctors took turned their Dungeons & Dragons game into a video game company. They called that company Bioware, and the game was called Baldur’s Gate. They also produced a sequel and then moved on stories in other universes, including their own. Today, a third Baldur’s Gate game is upon us, but from a completely different developer- this game is brought to us by Larian Studios.

 

[Pladio]

Can't get onto the US Gamer links. Do they work for you?

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

 

[JFarrell71]

Can't get onto the US Gamer links. Do they work for you?

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Not I.

 

[Couchpotato]

Can't get onto the US Gamer links. Do they work for you?

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Hmm…they worked earlier.

From the looks of it the main site is down with a 504 Gateway Time-out error.

So nothing I can do sorry. Just check back later.

 

[Pladio]

Thanks both. Wasn't sure if it was a location block.

Thanks

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

 

[Couchpotato]

@Pladio; The links are working again. Seems they fixed the connection problem.

 

[Pladio]

@Pladio; The links are working again. Seems they fixed the connection problem.

Thanks

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

 

[Couchpotato]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #9

Hello everyone!

We launched Baldur’s Gate 3 exactly 1 week ago, ish. The launch surpassed all our expectations. Our philosophy heading into Early Access was to hit a comfortable amount of players, gather feedback, and incrementally iron out and improve the game towards launch.

Good news! That’s still the plan. But the *bigger than expected launch* broke a few things. In chronological order, it apparently broke Steam, it then broke our launcher sign ups because the servers couldn’t keep up, and then it went on to break our support pipeline with a huge influx of support tickets. We’re not complaining. These are good problems to have.

The day before launch, the weather also broke the Ghent basement. Which was suboptimal because we were shooting a thing for those who get to the end of Act 1 (no spoilers).