Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New (earlier for PC, later for PS5) BG3 release date and more

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Meaty updates. Some highlights:

• August 3rd for PC, and September 6th for PS5 - BG3 will be aiming for 60FPS on console. XBOXX/S is still being worked on, and no specific release date for now.
• level cap: 12
• total of 11 races and 31 subraces -half-orcs and dragonborn confirmed
• 12ve classes, Monk confirmed
• Karlach conformed as an origin but she is not the only one (she also looks badass, and aparently... she is a good companion?). One more will be revealed in the upcoming Panel From Hell
• @Icelyn rejoice - in addition to origin 4 companions have been announced: Minsc, Jaheira, Helsin and Minthara
• No party lock confirmed
• three difficulty modes

And so much more reveals !!!
Just read that guys it really worth it !!!!

College of Swords baby! Yeah! Surprised at the lack of Variant Human or Hexblade but not that sad. This is some serious hype!

Larian managed to sneak in dragonborn tails? That goes against every D&D design I have seen. Not that I complain.
In general they look rather good. Half orcs on the other hand are humans in green. At least the 2nd one.

I hope not all monk moves contain as much flurish as the ones shown. They look more like firebender than D&D monks to me.

No new companions besides Halsin and Karlach is expected. But so much for Larian nit including good companions to get more feedback on the usually less popular evil ones...
Edit: Ok, there is 1 more. I wonder who....
Good thing they walked back on the party lock.

The earlier release is I guess a reaction to Starfield. Lets see if the game is still ready or if the missing weeks will be noticable.

Yes - Minsc was datamines early on as potential origin, so it is not impossible that much has changed when it comes to actual companions. Or maybe thirst of Helsin/Minthara made them do those instead.

Just have a strage feeling about Halsin AND Jaheira as companions.
It means 2 druids for good aligned companions.

This is the kind of news I like A Thursday in the UK.......I can wait until Friday to get immersed as that's my wine day. So much anticipation....

*starts at level 1*



Just gotta have that haunted past and legendary status eh?

Yes, and one assumed both are available only through good path. Not ideal, as it seems we won't cover all classes anyway - only increases my suspision that Helsin and Minthara are feedback driven additions.

Ha, and Archdruid Helsin will be what... level 3? Minsc and Jaheria should by level 20 by now. Yeah, I think I gave up on Larian trying to do storytelling through gameplay a while ago.

Great stuff. Can’t wait to see this PFH.

Karlach looks great.

What a day for the forum to be creaking! After lots of timeouts just managed to do a quick read, but will need to come back and absorb properly later this evening.

Still generally sounds like good news and while mainly in line with what we've been expecting, some extra titbits such as the Gloom Stalker ranger which I know nothing about but recall folk here have said good things about in the past. And I was definitely not expecting the early PC release .

Still no shorter race companions announced and it feels like that is now not looking likely. I read it that we now have all the companions but that one more of them - possibly Minsc based on early data mining - will be an origin, but perhaps that's not what it means? I will be a little sad if we don't get a dwarf, halfling or gnome companion, but will continue to hold out hope for camp followers.

But no party lock is definitely a big plus in my book, so I'll definitely take that as a win.

Btw, do we think Karlach might be a Wild Magic barbarian based on the description and the fact that's now been confirmed as a subclass?

I dont really want to sound ungrateful (even tho im sure i will) but to be completely honest, this points are a bit disapointing.

I had hopes for at least one bestial, or little more exceptional race.
Well ... lets hope Larian reconcider their attitude towards Expansions. ^_^

As for origin ... i dont want to argue, since English is not my first, nor second, or even third language (as many of you probably noticed by now ) ...
But im quite sure, it was never said that "one" more will be revealed ... its reasonable expectation, that much is true ... but litteral quote as far as i know was:

Difficiulty is most dissapointing for me ...
As Larian described it, it seems like we just get fancy named easy/normal/hard with no option to tune things as we want to.
I get the reason ... but it still feels like wasted potential.

But the most pain in my heart is from absence of any mention of starting gear ... seems like this dream will remain just that > a dream.

//Edit:
I wouldnt expect that ...
Minsc is mentioned in this post as "just a follower", just as he was confirmed in the past as "just a follower, aka not an Origin one".

There is still at least some hope for Helia ...

Still ... we dont have any Origin Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Monk, Bard or Paladin ... as far as i know.
And somehow i dont really think Larian will reveal another 6 Origin characters. O_o

//Edit:
Another thing ...
Have you noticed that there is no mention about Stat Rolling?
Hope that is still planned.

Hey, they might reveal something more at the PFH, maybe there is something extra, aside the new origin, who knows :3

Also, how does cross save work? I was thinking of starting on Pc, and then moving over to PS5 when it launches there.

Wasn't there a theory about a werewolf companion at some point?
But that was also a druid, or? 3 druids would be excessive.

No short companion might be an animation issue.
Maybe making variants for short PCs was so much effort they don't also make variants for a short companion.

They make a clear distinction between origins (Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart, Wyll, Zael, Karlach) and companions (Minsc, Jaheira, Helsin, Minthara). Presumably the main difference will be that we can't play as companion, though I don't think it's been said if origins and companions will have a similar amound of content - there could be a difference there as well.

Karlach is not a final origin, so there is one more to come. There is possibility for more than one, but the post implies that the final origin will be revealed during the stream - making it one final addition to the roster. I would be happy if it turns out to be more, but the post implies it is just one more. Likely Helia, whatever she ended up being.

This is the biggest update I have seen on the game. I am still re-reading to make sure I didn't miss anything. So much good stuff.

1. I am glad they dumped the ACT 1 character lock. That was something I was not looking forward to dealing with and I think a lot of people hated it.
2. The Level cap of 12 is really good. It's what I expected.
3. The Ukrainian localization is a huge deal, almost no one does that, or at least I have not seen it.
4. Interested to see what the 7th origin Character is now that Karlach is confirmed. I am also excited that they made Minthara and Halsin possible companions. Those will make for WILDLY different playthroughs.
5. So happy to see War Caster and Resilient in the available Feat lists. That puts concentration spells back on the table.
6. Also glad to see difficulty levels back in. We shall be playing hardcore methinks! Again i expected this but it's nice to have confirmation.
7. I think Dragonborn looks amazing. Same with orcs. Well done on the subraces.
8. Some crazy subclasses in there. Looks like they went beyond the PHB by a considerable margin. haha.

Anyway, I am sure there are things people are disappointed about, but there is SO much good shit here I am psyched.

Early release is a great news. I also happy that act1 character lock has been officially confirmed to be dropped. I am happy about Minthara and Halsin mostly as it means two more companions than I expected, though I am not terribly excited about either of them in particular. I don't expect to have space in my party for either of them - unless a large amount of companions will be lost along the way. There is no party locks, but it doesn't mean that some companions can't be exclusive (minthara-Helsin, Shadowheart-Laez).

Other than that, it's nothing that I wasn't expecting in 1.0 already. Still, it is nice to get a peak into stuff we didn't get to play with during Early Access.

This is great news! I will wrap up playing Yakuza: Like a Dragon, then tuck into BG3 as soon as it's released. I hope the controller support is ready for the PC release. fingers crossed!

Yeah, I think Halsin and Minthara will be mutually exclusive since either one requires you to kill the other and I don't see them changing THAT bit at least. It really makes sense, and having them in the same party would be incompatible.

Lae'zel, Minthara, Shadowheart* and Astarion for the evil side so far. I wonder if Minthara can be show it's a Mindflayer plot like you can with Nere.


*not really.

I'm gonna try and be positive first because there was indeed a whole lot of great stuff in this update. I was interested in Karlach before and her description now makes me even more excited. I was hoping she'd be a paladin but honestly I'm not actually bothered. It just means Lae'zel will be my sword lady and Karlach can be my axe lady (she has strong axe vibes). I like how she has pretty strong chaotic good vibes from the way she's being described. Feels like she could be more straightforwardly good than I expected. Not entirely so given her craving for revenge, but moreso than I would have expected.

I like the look of half-orcs, already getting some potential ideas for them. And monks look absolutely rad. Plus while I never doubted they would be included I'm super excited to see Archfey warlocks and pact of vengeance paladins. I've got some ideas for those classes that I'm eager to jump into. I am cautiously excited to see how Larian handles all those wizard subclasses. I am also, of course, incredibly excited to see that the game is releasing WAY earlier than originally announced, that's insane and I'm glad the wait for this game won't be so achingly long (sorry PS5 players). All in all this is a great update that kicks my excitement for this game up an extra notch even if objectively it doesn't address a lot of my issues.

Which brings me to my biggest issue with this update. I am now quite underwhelmed by the potential party selection. They ditched the party lock, which I'm also happy about, but the party roster just feels lacking. We only have one, maybe two good origin companions and the other four? Meh. I had hoped for more new blood to join the party. Two past companions who by rights should be way more powerful (though I'm willing to let Minsc off the hook because he's not the original and is just a magically animated statue) and Halsin, another character who by rights should be way more powerful than us and doesn't even have an excuse to explain being powered down. I can understand them including him and Minthara as concessions to their popularity among the playerbase, that's probably a good call in some ways, but I'd have still wanted more surprises. More down to earth characters. It feels like this distinction of companion vs origin would have been the perfect place to introduce those sorts of characters into the party. Instead of Halsin, give us Nettie or Alfira. Instead of Minthara, give us Sazza. And the level of good in the party really doesn't feel like what their initial promise implied. I'm all for gray characters, but I'd have wanted more that were definitely a lighter shade of gray. So while I'm personally not unhappy with the party we'll ultimately get, I'm still disappointed in the lost potential of the roster.