Baldur's Gate 3 Releasing in Early Access (Update)

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get ready for the hype train .....

https://www.pcgamer.com/first-baldurs-gate-3-gameplay-footage-will-be-revealed-on-february-27/

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Update

Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming to Early Access This Year

https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-is-coming-to-early-access-this-year/

The first two are some of my favourite RPGs, and games in general. But the cynical part of me isn’t holding on to high hopes. If it’s awesome too, I’ll buy it immediately. I look forward to seeing gameplay footage.

Swen Vincke is a nice man.

I'm sure they'll do better than modern Bioware ever would.

The Original Sin series struggled with story but excel in a lot of their game and quest design elements. I'm very eager to see what they're doing with this one gameplay-wise, despite some wariness from them having also said it only loosely follows 5e D&D rules.

Better not **** this up. That company who did the HD ports of the previous 2 added absolute toss to it, stupid characters and nonsense. It has a reputation to uphold.

OMG. I'm hyped.

I'm so glad that it's not going to be some cookie cutter sequel with just a popular brand name and low AF production values. After masterful two recent divinity games, I'm just hyped for this one. Success of those games have clearly allowed them to go a bit further in bringing this franchise back.

Yes please!

GOTY.

Remember skipping school for the original.

@Vaasman: To be fair, Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 never had the best writing.

I replayed BG1 a few weeks ago and it was quite rough. BG2 fared a little better, but that's mainly because Irenicus' voice actor did a lot with some pretty questionable lines.

I think Original Sin 2 is on par with the BG games, as far as the writing goes.

I'm excited.

Divinity: Original Sin 1/2 has great gameplay, but mediocre story; hopefully Baldurs Gate can supplement that area well and they keep and improve the existing gameplay of their games.

Is BG a D and D 5e ruleset? I know Larian had to make their own set of rules iirc for their games, will be cool to see them with traditional DnD ruleset.

Don't believe they are five, apparently Icewind dale 2 was 3.5 and was a reason why beamdog could not do an enhanced edition. They must be lower.

Eugh, Firm disagreement on that one. OS2 is based in a frequent round of cheese and light jokes, which works sometimes, but otherwise makes stakes feel low and creates tonal clashes with it's occasional dark material. As well, for all the flexibility in side quests it lends you very little agency in character writing or development and gives the token "bang the characters suddenly scene" instead of lengthy side-interactions like in BG2. BG has the advantage of drawing from Forgotten Realm's extensive lore, enemy types, characters, and location options, lending the second game especially uniqueness and variety in encounters. The villains in the story of OS2 are also pretty lousy. Without spoiling much the main antagonist is barely present and some lame twists at the end try to shake it up but they aren't earned.

Lest we forget too they had to rewrite and redesign multiple sections of OS2 because of issues in pacing and design, particularly in the back half. Beast, for example, wasn't even really done by the launch edition, and there are still some big issues with the overall throughline of the plot, as various acts of the story struggle to tie into each other.

None of this is to say that BG2 is a terrific story as it's much better just as a template to role-play in than tell it's story. Nor to say OS2 is a bad story. But if we're looking at what could be improved and where the bar should be, BG2 should be the baseline to achieve.

@mrbojangles25

@Random_Matt

per this article They are starting at 5th edition but using many of their own designs, so, not really 5th. As an article example, they had stated that they didn't like how it felt to just miss an enemy in a video game. Which makes sense to me on some level since unlike a true game of 5e your options are limited by the code. However it does leave me wary of just how far they feel like things need to change to fit their ideas, because much like Dark Alliance, after a certain point it's not really D&D anymore.

I sing in a group at PAX East every year and I can't wait to see Baldurs Gate 3 on Thursday.

BG1 and 2 were second edition, and quite different from how 5e plays, while IWD2 was 3.0, with some liberties taken due to engine limitations. Beamdog didn't "enhance" IWD2 because the source code is gone, and former Black Isle developers have stated that as well.

https://www.pcgamer.com/icewind-dale-2-cant-be-enhanced-because-the-source-code-is-lost/

Uh-oh. Not a good sign.

Why "uh oh"?

Because there's nothing wrong with missing, especially in a d&d game. You get a bad roll, don't have good enough weapons or whatever....you should be missing.

That guy always plays an awesome villain.

There....are....FOUR...lights!

Love Divinity, interested to see how they change up Baldurs Gates frankly unimpressive gameplay. The ORiginal sin games have the coolest fucking crpg battle system, so it be a shame if they went with that basic bitch Baldur's gate shit.

Like I had stated in my post I partially agree with the logic though. In an actual game of D&D the freedom of the system means failure is (or should be) welcome, and can itself be a pathway to some new possibility because much of the fun just comes from communal improvised storytelling. However in a CRPG the structure of combat and gameplay is, for better or worse, fairly rigid and you can't suddenly make weird decisions or compensate for things going poorly, can't make free actions or crazy movements, and can't really communicate ideas to anyone else. There are only so many possibilities that can be programmed in this day and age. So a miss in a CRPG is effectively just a wasted turn and not much else, which can be deflating.

Never played any of the originals, but only heard good things about em. Divinity 1 and 2 were amazing, so im excited af for this.

This is actually a really interesting topic of discussion :D Seriously.

I can see the merits of both. However I must favor the CRPG because without a human DM you are reliant on very strict, very technical, rules that lack any sort of wiggle room.

So freaking hyped for this! My favorite developer are making a dungeon and dragons game, going to be epic!!

Could care less if they had called it generic d&d title or bg3 to be honest. Imo the bhaal saga Is done and have no interest to return to it

Oh boy oh boy!

I trust Larian Studios delivers, they definitely have the passion!

BG1 and 2 only had a loose following of then contemporary D&D rules as well. Which is why Beholders were so weak compared to their tabletop variants.

If they are going with RTwP, they will have to loosely follow the rules, as the rules are strictly built for turn based combat.

And missing being more than a wasted turn. I had critical fails in D&D turn into important movements of character development.

Very excited to see this I love BG (2 in particular). I think its in good hands with larian.

Damn! February 27 can't come soon enough.

Update

I'm definitely excited - although I won't be doing early access

I'm excited, but don't know when I'll get to it. Final Fantasy 7 remake takes precedence! Then there's a tsunami of other games and even new consoles coming.

Good thing is, Larian uses early access properly. Leaves early access in a few month and as a result final version works day 1.