Baldur's Gate 3: How far can you play in early access, when it will release, and everything we know

Summer's here, and that means Baldur's Gate 3 isn't far behind. In fact, in an attempt to dodge the eclipsing force of Starfield's release in September, Larian's revival of the revered RPG series will be hitting almost a month earlier than we'd all expected. Mark the first week of August for our long-awaited return to the Forgotten Realms.

Baldur's Gate 3 early adopters might've been restricted to the game's first act, but they've been wringing all they can out of it for the last three years. Baldur's Gate 3 was earning accolades before its full release even had a date to work with. Larian's found a winning formula by mixing the Forgotten Realms with the studio's densely-packed role-playing and combat environments, with a sprinkling of D&D 5E thrown in.

We've been keeping our very own Baldur's Gate 3 compendium throughout its Early Access period. If you've got questions about Baldur's Gate 3 classes, characters, and mechanics, we've got them collected below, so there'll be nothing holding you back once we reach the August release date. Assuming we aren't counting all the mind flayers, anyway. Here's everything we know about Baldur's Gate 3.

Baldur's Gate 3 release date

What's the Baldur's Gate 3 release date?

Baldur’s Gate 3 will leave Early Access for a full release on August 3, 2023. Baldur's Gate 3's original release date had been set for the end of the month, but Larian has pushed the timetable forward for one big reason: Starfield. Of course, we don't know if that's the official story, but with Bethesda's space RPG set to steal the thunder of anything else in its release window, it seems like a reasonable explanation.

Baldur's Gate 3 got a firm-ish August release window announced at The Game Awards 2022, after which Larian founder Swen Vincke said he's "reasonably confident" about the timeframe. In February 2023, Larian solidified those plans by announcing the official date in August.

While there were hopes for a 2022 release, Larian had been signaling that there was a longer wait in store, eventually confirming a 2023 launch window by asking fans to "come along in 2023" in a retrospective dev video.

The finished version of Baldur's Gate 3 will be on GOG as well as Steam.

Here's the latest Baldur's Gate 3 reveal trailer

Shown off at our own 2023 PC Gaming Show, this city reveal has the team at Larian Studios giving some insight into the creation of Baldur's Gate's different districts, and just how tough it was to make a seamless city. The most choice bit of all about how interactive Baldur's Gate really will be came from lead writer Adam Smith: "...the great thing is, if you so choose you can be another bad thing that's happening to the city. You can arrive and be like, this place is on fire, and then throw petrol all over it."

Villain lovers, your time may have come to set fire to the ultimate stage.

Baldur's 3 gameplay

How does Baldur's Gate 3 play?

For a longer read, check out our Baldur's Gate 3 early access review.

True to the series, Baldur's Gate 3 is the classic party-based RPG affair: You'll gather and manage a squad of archetypal fantasy heroes, exploring their histories as you chase down your own main quest. Like in Larian's Divinity Original Sin 2, your primary character will start the game as either an "origin character"—developer-authored characters with unique backgrounds and special story and dialogue hooks—or make your own fully-custom character from scratch.

The game is heavily systems-driven, with a combat system Larian has based off the D&D 5e ruleset. "We'll stay true to our roots," says Larian founder Sven Vincke, "so we'll give players lots of systems and lots of agency to use these systems and try to accomplish what you need to on your personal adventure and your party's adventure."

We definitely found that to be the case in our early access review. "Almost every object can be turned into a weapon in a pinch—one of my first kills was with a skull that I picked up and tossed at a monster," Fraser says. "This is a side of D&D that was previously missing from Baldur's Gate—the creative, messy sandbox. Every confrontation is an opportunity to push your luck and stretch the game's systems like you're negotiating with a DM." 

"Baldur's Gate 3 is always rolling dice and making passive skill checks to determine if you're going to notice that sliding bookcase right in front of you. These happen automatically, accompanied by the comforting rattle of dice, but dialogue and active skill checks actually replicate some of the tactile delight of real tabletop roleplaying by making you manually roll a digital D20."

While out-of-combat gameplay is typically in real-time, you can act out more detailed schemes by switching to turn-based gameplay outside of combat as well. It's particularly useful for doing some good old sneaking and stealing. In multiplayer, you can blend real-time and turn-based modes between players; your mate could be shopping while you're fighting. 

An option added in patch 4 allows you to turn on Karmic Dice, which Larian says, "helps smooth out the extremes of the bell curve [but] retains the core elements of RNG, ensuring a player can no longer be unlucky or super lucky with several dice rolls in a row."

How far can you play in Early Access?

The first act includes a chunk of the Forgotten Realms' Sword Coast, the Underdark beneath it, an ancient fortress called Grymforge, and a brief jaunt through Hell. The titular city of Baldur's Gate doesn't appear on-screen in the first act, sadly, but there's plenty to play through besides. The first act clocks in at over 20 hours' worth of content. Unsurprisingly, the Early Access version has a level cap: after an increase in December 2022, your characters can only progress up to level 5.

Obviously, your playtime for the first act will vary based on how many fights you get into and how thoroughly you explore. Sticking to the main quest will take you all across the world map, but there's plenty to find off the beaten track. If you're in a rush, a speedrunner has finished it in seven minutes (because of course they have).

Compared to Divinity: Original Sin 2's run in Early Access, Baldur's Gate 3's Early Access is a denser experience. BG3 launched with considerably more combat encounters, characters, spells and lines of dialogue, which has only been added to over time.

Which Dungeons & Dragons edition is Baldur's Gate 3 based on?

Baldur's Gate 3 is heavily inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition ruleset, reconfigured to fit a virtual space by the wizards at Larian. CEO Swen Vincke explained that some rules and systems don't fully translate from tabletop to digital game, so the studio has worked to create an original game system that's satisfying to play as a digital game while staying true to the D&D spirit.

Baldur's Gate 3 classes and characters

What classes and races are available?

A host of D&D race options are currently playable in early access, including humans, halflings, dwarves, elves, half-elves, drow, gnomes, tieflings, and githyanki. A number of the available races have subraces to choose from, reflecting different lineages within that race. For example, while creating an Elf character, you can choose between the High Elf and Wood Elf subraces, while a Dwarf character can be a Hill Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf, or—in the full release—a Duergar.

Dragonborn and half-orcs are set to join the party with the game's full release, with Dragonborn having a full 10 subraces, one for each draconic ancestry, to choose from. Here's all the specifics about the Baldur's Gate 3 races that are playable so far.

On the class front, 11 classes are playable in Early Access: cleric, fighter, ranger, rogue, warlock, wizard, druid, sorcerer, barbarian, bard, and the most recently added paladin. In the June 2023 Baldur's Gate 3 community update, Larian revealed that the Monk class will also be playable at 1.0 release.

Expect your class to influence your role-playing off the battlefield as well as in combat. "The stories are very much tied to class at times," senior writer Adam Smith told us in our first look at Baldur's Gate 3. "Class is such a part of identity in D&D, in a way that it wasn't in DOS2." Larian's committed to offering every D&D 5e class for Baldur's Gate 3's full release.

What's the level cap in Baldur's Gate 3?

In Early Access, players were could only advance to level 5. For the full game, the level cap was initially set at level 10, but a June 2023 Baldur's Gate 3 community update revealed that the cap would be increased to level 12. From the sounds of it, the cap increase was mostly so players can access a D&D 5E's set of 6th level spells. Compared to 5th level spells, 6th level magic can get pretty wild—letting you beseech an otherworldly being for assistance in the form of a divine champion, for example.

How do custom characters work in Baldur's Gate 3?

Like in Divinity: Original Sin 2, when deciding your player character, you have two options: you can choose an "Origin character," a character fully-authored, bespoke character from Larian with its own story. Or you can make an entirely custom character from scratch. While more personalized dialogue choices and story hooks made Divinity OS2's studio-made main characters the better option, Larian said in an AMA on Reddit that in BG3, "custom characters have a much stronger connection to the world and the main arc of the story. … We’re confident that you won’t feel short-changed in terms of narrative breadth and depth if you choose to play as a custom character."

Apparently, Larian's making an effort to ensure there are plenty of dialogue and quest hooks that'll reflect the choices you've made for your custom character. "When we say there are serious consequences to your choices, we really mean it," Larian said. "As you move through your adventure, you’ll discover quest-lines and stories that relate directly to the character you’re roleplaying, and the things that you’ve done."

What choices are there for Origin characters?

As mentioned above, you can choose an Origin character as your player character: a character with their own handcrafted Larian story. If you'd rather make a character that's fully your own, Origin characters will be available as companions.

Larian's said that Baldur's Gate 3 will have six origin characters, with five of them appearing as companions in Early Access. The sixth, Karlach, is present in Early Access, but will only be available as a companion in the full release. Baldur's Gate 3's origin characters are:

• Astarion - High Elf Rogue
• Gale - Human Wizard
• Lae'zel - Githyanki Fighter
• Shadowheart - Half-elf Cleric
• Wyll - Human Warlock
• Karlach - Tiefling Barbarian

Are there companion romance options?

Your party members will have opinions about all sort of decisions that you make as the player character, including which factions you choose to support and who you choose to kill. You can debrief about everything back at the party camp, which is also where you can engage in more intimate activities. And yes, you can romance them. Larian dished some details on Baldur's Gate 3 character relationships and let's just say the game is definitely rated "M" by the ESRB for a reason. If you've managed to find your way into a romantic relationship with one of your party members, you'll definitely be able to act on the physical side of it. Yup, you can have sex in Baldur's Gate 3.

"We are trying to make these relationships feel real and feel like the relationships you have in the real world," lead writer Sarah Baylus explained. "You will meet some people who you have nothing in common with, some will be useful to work together, but that is going to be the extent of it. But there could be situations where you get on really well, you share similar goals and you love travelling together."

So far in Early Access, the most romanced character is Gale the wizard, but folks also aren't shy about being evil to get some action either. "They're all horny," Vincke says of early players.

Baldur's gate 3 story and setting

What's the story and setting for Baldur's Gate 3?

Baldur's Gate 3 tells a new story set in the current era of the Forgotten Realms. The mind flayers—psychic, squid-faced alien tyrants—have found a way to once again travel between worlds. Surprise: it's for an invasion.

The player-character and main companions are all infected with a parasitic tadpole that should turn them into mind flayers, but for some reason the process isn't working like it normally does. One of the key quests is to find out more information about the tadpoles and get them removed. 

Though the party doesn't appear to be transforming into mind flayers right away, the tadpole still has an effect. You can link minds with other people with tadpoles and get some other benefits, but the more you use your power, the easier you'll be to control when you happen across another mind flayer.

The mind flayers are a bad guy mainstay in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. They have powerful psionic abilities, meaning they can control the minds of other sentient beings. Oh, and they eat brains. They frequently keep slaves to do their bidding and serve as a convenient snack should they feel a bit peckish.

Unsurprisingly, the interdimensional brain-eating menace has earned itself some enemies over the millennia. At the start of Baldur's Gate 3 we see a battle between mind flayers, demons, and githyanki, all taking place in and around a ship that's rapidly falling apart. The githyanki in particular feature prominently in Baldur's Gate 3, since one of your first companions is a githyanki fighter who was captured by mind flayers. 

The city of Baldur's Gate will feature of course, but the whole city won't be available to the player, only relevant sections. It's still a bit of a mystery, as we've only seen it briefly in trailers and cutscenes. In the early access version, you won't reach the city, though you will see it from a distance during a dream. 

Baldur's Gate 3 has a metric ton of cinematic story content

In Larian's June 2023 Baldur's Gate 3 community update, the studio put some numbers on just how much story we can expect. Turns out: it's a lot. "Baldur’s Gate 3 has more cinematic dialogue than three times all three Lord of the Rings novels combined," Larian says. "It has 174 hours of cinematics, making it more than twice the length of every season of Game of Thrones combined."

Of course, you almost certainly won't see all of that in a single playthrough. There are probably big chunks of that mass of dialogue and cinematics you'll only get after making specific choices while playing. We'll need to wait and see whether the ratio of gameplay to dialogue ends up feeling satisfying or sloggy, but still: I'm sure Hideo Kojima would be impressed.

How does it connect to the previous games? 

While Baldur's Gate 3 follows a new host of characters years after the events of Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal, there'll apparently still be some connections to the earlier games. In a Reddit AMA, Vincke said, "We really don't want to spoil anything but we wouldn't call it Baldur’s Gate 3 if there wouldn't be a link. Let me just say that we touch upon the story of BG 1 & 2 in meaningful ways, there are returning characters and what happened in BG 1/2/tob leads to what happens into BG3." 

The Game Awards' trailer revealed the return of two popular characters: Jaheira and Minsc, voiced respectively by voice work veteran Tracy Wiles and the inescapable Matt Mercer.

Baldur's Gate 3 trailers

What other trailers and gameplay for Baldur's Gate 3 are out there?

There's also the gameplay reveal if you want a look at how the new and improved adventurers look in action.

You can check out the original cinematic cinematic announcement trailer for Baldur's Gate 3 with all its body horror glory. 

For lots more, you can also watch over an hour of alpha gameplay , streamed during PAX East 2020. Vincke shows off a detailed look at combat, both when it goes right and when it goes wrong in proper Larian fashion. Note that some changes have been made to combat since this video.

Aa live playthrough of the Grymforge region highlighted the sorcerer class, and the chaos possible in multiplayer. Other trailers shed light on the barbarian class and tweaks to combat, as well as bards and gnomes. More recently, the Game Awards trailer gave us a glimpse of Minsc and a release window.

Other Baldur's Gate 3 info

What are the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods?

Just like the previous Baldur's Gate games, the latest entry in the series is moddable. Over 100 mods are already available, some of them adding features of D&D that aren't present in the current early access version for players too impatient to wait for Larian to add them officially. These are a few of the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods so far.

• ImprovedUI: Mods for additional classes rely on ImprovedUI, plus it adds an option to drop the interface completely so you can take sweet screenshots.
• LVLUp: Raise the level cap to 20, and cast new spells like the classic fireball.
• Paladin, Monk: More playable classes.
• Sorcerer subclasses: Adds the Aberrant Mind, Clockwork Soul, Divine Soul, Shadow Magic, and Storm Sorcery subclasses.
• Enhanced Gear Progression: There are some items in the game files that can't be found in-game. Unless you install this mod.
• Tav's Hair Salon: More hairstyles for ladies.
• Basket Full of Equipment: Over 150 additional items of clothing and armor, some of them NSFW. There's a SFW version too.
• 5e Spells: Adds some of the D&D spells not yet implemented in BG3, like Lightning Lure, Toll the Dead, and Blink.

Baldur's Gate 3 system requirements

Baldur's Gate 3 system requirements are surprisingly gentle for such a pretty game. Be aware, though, that Larian has amended storage requirements slightly. The game used to require only 70GB, but has now more than doubled to 150GB.

The Act 1 content releasing in early access will only take up 80GB, so the rest of that space is reserved for updates down the line.

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
• Processor: Intel i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 150 GB available space

Recommended:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel i7 4770k / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX580
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 150 GB available space

Cross-saves are supported

Fans of Divinity: OS2 will remember that Larian added cross-save compatibility between the Switch and Steam versions. Larian is pulling a similar trick in Baldur's Gate 3. Instead of running cross-saves through Steam's propriety system, player saves are tied to a dedicated Larian account. That account will be accessible on every platform that Baldur's Gate 3 eventually releases on.

How is Wizards of the Coast involved?

As custodians of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast are involved in clearing storylines and keeping the D&D lore consistent. The quality of Divinity: Original Sin 2 convinced Wizards of the Coast to greenlight Baldur's Gate 3. 

If you caught any of the recent D&D OGL controversy, don't worry about any potential Baldur's Gate 3 impacts: Larian confirmed to VG247 that the dispute wouldn't affect the game.