The demand for Baldur's Gate 3 is a lot higher than anticipated, as the launch of the Early Access version of the game is causing crashes on Steam. Fans have been waiting almost twenty years for the latest entry in the Baldur's Gate series, and they're going to have to wait a bit longer, as the game has only just entered Early Access on Google Stadia and PC.
Baldur's Gate 3 is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons and it involves a party of adventurers who have been infected with tadpoles that will turn them into Mind Flayers, which are Lovecraftian monsters. The Early Access version of the game only has a limited number of classes and races to choose from. It contains the first of three planned acts and is expected to take over twenty hours to complete.
The Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 is launching at the cost of a complete game. Despite this, the demand for the game is such that it's causing issues on Steam. DownDetector is reporting problems with Steam, while customers are complaining on social media and forums about the store not completing purchases for Baldur's Gate 3. There are also people struggling to download the game through Steam, getting errors when trying to make their purchases and refreshing the game's store page.
The initial response to the Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 has been mixed, due to the bugs that are present throughout the entire experience. Larian Studios has said that the Early Access version isn't for everyone and that customers should be aware that they're paying for the worst possible version of the game going in. The Early Access period will be helpful in identifying bugs for the developers, but this comes at a high cost of entry for the consumer. Despite this, fans are clearly clamoring for a chance to return to the Forgotten Realms.
Purchasing the Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 will ensure a copy of the complete version of the game further down the road, so some fans could see it as a form of pre-ordering/playing a demo of the game. The Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 has already faced several delays and the final version will likely face some of its own, based on the current quality of the game. Despite all of the problems, it seems that anticipation for Baldur's Gate 3 is sky-high, and Steam is struggling to keep up with the demand.
Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access is available now on PC and Google Stadia.
Source: DownDetector