If all goes according to plan, Larian Studios will be launching Baldur Gate 3's early access on October 6th, 2020. Baldur Gate 3's early access is promising to be even bigger than the one Larian Studios did for their other game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, but how long should players expect to take to beat it?
Larian Studios is new to the Baldur's Gate franchise, the first two games being developed by BioWare. After the wildly successful Divinity: Original Sin 2, players are eager to see what Larian does with the Dungeons & Dragons IP. The early access for Baldur's Gate 3 has been a long time coming. It was originally set to start in August before being pushed to September 30th, and then pushed again to October 6th.
In an earlier community update, Larian Studios laid out just how much content early access players should expect. A single playthrough of the available campaign should take roughly 20 hours, and by that point players should have reached level four. But the developers are hoping that players of early access will do multiple playthroughs, as it is impossible to see all of the content in one run. Some quests and characters are gated behind certain decisions, and Larian has even implored players to "be evil" in Baldur's Gate 3 and use the early access to try darker routes they wouldn't normally try in a permanent game save. They want players to experience as much of the world of Baldur's Gate 3 as possible, both to get feedback on what is and isn't working, and to collect data about how often players are dying and other statistics that will help them balance the game.
What Content is In Baldur's Gate 3's Early Access?
The scope of the Baldur's Gate 3 early access is fairly staggering. To start with the smaller numbers, for early access, there will be 6 classes and 9 races, and 5 companions to recruit. There will also be nearly 46,000 lines of dialogue and nearly 600 characters; both those numbers are roughly three times the size of content that was offered in Divinity: Original Sin 2's early access. Larian Studios says that players shouldn't think of the game as bigger than Divinity: Original Sin 2, but denser. Much of the reason for more dialogue is to create more permutations, to react to players based on everything from their race to their past decisions. They want the game to feel like it is in an active dialogue with the player, and that means recording more options to have the right lines to go with any given situation.
Whether Baldur's Gate 3 delivers on being an immersive Dungeons & Dragons experience remains to be seen. The glimpses players have been given at the breadth of options available, however, has been impressive. Whatever Baldur's Gate 3 shows off during its early access, it will only be a fraction of the final game, meaning players have dozens and dozens of RPG escapades in their future.
Source: Larian Studios
Baldur's Gate 3 releases in Early Access on PC and Google Stadia on October 6th, 2020.