Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What is everyone think the final release date will be?

Yes, as there are so many different story threads, depending on how you play, it is difficult to even know if something has changed, or you simply didn't encounter it before. I just noticed that the Owlbear cave seem to have been reworked, for example.

Patience is required, but it seems to be in short supply.

March 2022, with a DC version in June of 2023.

Launch: Oct 6, 2020
Patch 2: Oct 27, 2020 (3 weeks after Patch 1=Launch)
-- Bug fixes & cinematic tweaks, "75% of you stood with Tieflings...Good outweighs evil." Nothing significant in this patch.
Patch 3: Dec 2, 2020 (5 weeks after Patch 2, 8 weeks since launch)
-- Pacifism, companion behavior, party auto-jump, 2 short rests, rebalanced cantrips.
Patch 4: Feb 25, 2020 (12 weeks after Patch 3, 20 weeks since launch)
--Druid Class, loaded dice, target portraits, various dialogue and story changes

Going forward
We need the 5 remaining classes: Barbarian, Bard, Monk, Paladin, Sorcerer. These classes should be easier than the Druid, so let's estimate ~8 weeks each. 5x8=40 weeks
We might be getting the remainder of Act 1. Let's say this patch, on its own, will add 15 weeks.
We need the 2-4(?) remaining companions. These can probably be released as patches between and/or with the above patches.
Let's be a bit generous and add another 10 weeks for extra miscellaneous stuff to be added, another 10 weeks for final testing and polishing, and then another 10 weeks for delays due to flooding.

40+15+10+10+10=85 weeks from Feb 25
Release: October 13, 2022
Total Time in EA: slightly over 2 years

I personally don't expect them to integrate ANY suggestions besides maybe some mechanic tweaks that are from the forum. I am fine with that. Personally I am expecting maybe Q1 2022 or Q4 2021. This is not a BETA release, this is Early Access, which means they probably have the majority of stuff baked in and now it is simply fine tuning, and research bug reports from players for different hardware/OS conflicts, framerate for different cards etc. They are probably on the last chapters now so I am expecting a little less, or a little over a year.

Hopefully 2022. Maybe even 2023. They need to spend the time to make this truly a dnd 5e game.

Anyone thinking full release is in 2021 is asking for a really bug-filled time. There is no way this is happening before Spring 2022.

(And add a few weeks for every time one of their offices gets flooded.)

You guys are crazy , Sven from Larian has said it will be in EA for atleast a year or more, It will be release either late this year or early next year.

They have 300 people working on it across 5 studios. That costs alot of money they will have targets set for release date.

Dos 2 was in early access for 1 year remember so i am expecting similar with BG3

I admire the optimism, and late this year (december-ish) would be amazing. But that's probably the absolute earliest. Spring-summer next year seems more likely to me.

Datamining has shown that there is a lot of code in BG3 from chapter 2 and probably also chapter 3. They have managed to find a lot what's supposed to happen when the party gets to Baldur's Gate.

I believe Larian Studios has the entire story created already at a higher level. Early Access is used to iron out bugs in the game mechanisms and getting feedback on what works and doesn't work. This way they can adapt without having to rewrite too much of their code. Once they feel the mechanisms are working and the players like the design then they can finish the parts of the game we haven't seen yet.

It's pretty obvious they can't put too much game story into early access. This doesn't mean chapter 2 and chapter 3 with quests etc. haven't been developed. You just can't access these.

Right now I think they're working hard on adding more companions, classes, races and so on. The druid was released in the last patch and I expect us to see a new race / class every 3rd month or so until the game is finished. The mechanisms for all classes are probably already coded so it's more about fleshing out the new classes with graphics etc. E. g. datamining has been able to find code for smite evil that will be used by paladins.

So I think BG 3 is in a more advanced state than one could think after just playing the early access. Remember that Larian Studios have used early access before for DOS 1+2. It usually takes a bit over 1 year from release of EA until the final version is released. For BG3 I expect a bit longer time because the game is bigger. So a final release time in the Summer of 2022 is definitely realistic. It could be as late as before Christmas 2022. Personally I don't think they will be able to release the game before Christmas 2021, but I would be pleasantly surprised if they do.

My guess is late 2022.