A user-created FAQ, about both the Early Access phase of the game and the features the game will have when it releases in full.
EARLY ACCESS When will the full game be released ? In 2023.
Source : Panel From Hell 5 (Patch 7), at 1:39:30. It is also said in this video interview.Strictly speaking, 2023 means between the 1st January and the 31st December. Since Larian was previously aiming to finish in 2022, and since they announced in February 2022 having about one year left, it might be more likely to be in the first half. Then again, Larian was late on Early Access release and spent longer than planned in Early Access, so maybe it will be the second half or later, who knows.
Will I have to buy the game again on release, if I buy it during Early Access ? No. If you pre-order now, you will get the game upon release. Until then, you can already access an early version of it.
Source : official FAQ. How much of the story is available in Early Access ? Only Act 1.
Source : official FAQ.Larian wants players to have a fresh experience when the game releases, so they keep a lot of content out of EA. This includes in particular the bulk of the story. In fact, only a part of Act 1 is available. Also, the Act 1 of v1.0 will be somewhat different from that of the EA version, as Swen suggested in this
Destructoid interview. Acts 2 and 3 will not be available in Early Access, as Swen reiterated that in this
Eurogamer interview.
Is it worth getting into BG3 now ? If you want a smooth experience : no, the current version is far from polished and still full of bugs. If you just want to experience the full story and don't mind the lack of polish : no, the full story is not available yet. If you want to give feedback and (perhaps, potentially) help improve the game, you can. Naturally, with every passing day, feedback will probably less and less sought by Larian, but as of right now, it's still sought.
Will my saves carry over when the full game releases ? No.
Source : official FAQ. In fact, saves become incompatible every time a new Patch releases.
Level Cap : what will it be during Early Access ? Level 4.
Source : official FAQ.
However, in
Panel From Hell 3 (Patch 5), at 52:27, Swen said the jury was still out on that and that maybe they would put Level 5 in EA.
What Races and Classes will be available in Early Access ? The EA version currently has Gnomes, Dwarves, Halflings, Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, Tieflings, and Githyankis. The remaining Races from the PHB are Half-Orcs and Dragonborns.
The EA version currently has Fighters, Barbarian, Rangers, Rogues, Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Bards. The remaining Classes from the PHB are Paladins and Monks.
Larian did not say whether or not the remaining Races and Classes would appear in Early Access. As they want to make version 1.0 feel fresh, it is very possible that they will keep at least one Race or Class out of Early Access.
How are player data used ? Can I opt out ? Larian stated that they only collect data anonymously. As for how exactly they use telemetry, we've heard them talk about how they can track death locations, save/load locations, skill usage, item usage, chosen dialogue options, etc. [
Find link to an interview]. But not much more.
If you want to opt out of data gathering when you play, you can disable this in the Larian launcher.
Source : official FAQ Where should I send my feedback : Larian form, official forums, Discord, Reddit, Steam ? In principle, any of the above. Larian keeps some ears out to hear what the players say, but they never said how they do it, what place is monitored more, or what type of feedback is easier for them to process. The feedback form linked to in the Larian launcher is often the recommended option though. This forum has a Feedback & Suggestions section, Discord has a #bg3-feedback channel, and Reddit has Feedback Friday threads (I guess the Steam forum isn't the best place to post).
Is feedback still sought ? What kind of feedback ? How to make my feedback more useful ? Larian announced in
Panel From Hell 6 (Patch 8), at 1:26:47, that they are in the final stretch and the game is getting feature-complete. However, feedback is
still sought. This is further
confirmed by one of the Community Managers while describing her tasks.
The Early Access is mainly for community feedback on systems. Larian has a "large army of testers" internally, and the Early Access is not its testing ground for QA (Quality Assurance), which typically covers bugs.
Source : Destructoid interview.
Advice on how to give feedback can be found
in this Reddit post, from someone working in another video game company, as well as
in this forum post, from Larian CM.
That being said, since the release of Patch 8, there has been a
list of known issues and bugs maintained on the official forums. It is probably a good idea to look it up before reporting a bug. This
post is also worth reading.
STORY AND CONTENT How long will it take to play through the game ? Larian announced that this would probably be a 80-hour long game. [
Can't remember where. Find Source.]
However, for context, Larian announced that the EA content was probably 25h of gameplay.
Source : official FAQ. But many players would say it rather takes 30-40h to complete the EA content, at least on a first playthrough. So the full game may end up taking 100h on a first playthrough.
Are there story links with BG1&2 ? Yes. Most of these links are not visible in Act 1 and Early Access, but the story is meant to be connected to the previous games in meaningful ways.
Source : official FAQ.
In this
Techradar interview Swen also talks about the story hitting the same themes (e.g. the temptation of power).
On top of that, the story is also connected to the tabletop campaign Descent Into Avernus. [
Find link to an interview].
Finally, in the Early Access version, we can already find small references to BG1&2, through lore books.
How closely must Larian stick to the lore and rules of D&D ? Larian said they more or less have carte blanche.
Sources : RPG Site interview, Eurogamer interview, Wireframe interview.
Larian reported that WotC asked Larian to not use alignments in BG3 [
Source : can't remember. Find it.] But apart from this particular feature, it seems that there are few requests from WotC to make things a certain way, and not many green-lighting requests from Larian.
TECHNICAL FEATURES, PLAYER SETTINGS AND RULES Level cap : what will it be in the full release version ? Strictly more than 10. Larian's initial announcement was that the game would go up to Level 10. [
Find Source.] However, in a later communication, they said they would need to raise the Level cap. [
Find Source.]
There has been no indication of what the currently-planned Level cap is. Players often speculate that it will be between 11 and 14, but there is no official information on this.
Will the Custom Characters be voice-acted ? Yes. Larian said they'd have full voice acting, just like the Origin Characters.
Source : Reddit AMA.
But it is not clear whether this mean voicing every dialogue option the player can select, or just some scenes where the Custom Character speaks outside of the player's control.
Difficulty options : will there be some ? How granular will they be ? Yes, there will be difficulty options.
Source : official FAQ.
As for what these difficulty options would look like exactly, I don't think Larian said anything about this. It might be anything from just a global easy/medium/hard parameter, to a list of parameters that players can adjust independently like in other CRPGs derived from a tabletop RPG.
Will there be a Day/Night Cycle ? Technically, and as far as I know, Larian not has really explicitly confirmed that there won't be a Day/Night cycle in BG3. But in an interview, Adam Smith (senior writer) said "We don't do the day-night cycle". So I would expect the answer to be no.
Source : WCCFTech interview.
Will there be a Real-Time With Pause mode ? No. This was explicitly confirmed in this
Destructoid interview.
Are Reactions being worked on ? Yes. In
Panel From Hell 3 (Patch 5), at 53:00, Swen said that Reactions are "certainly something that [they]'re going to be extending". More recently, a Community Manager confirmed, in
this forum post, that Reactions are "being explored internally".
PARTY AND COMPANIONS Party. Will it be possible to play with a party of more than 4 adventurers ? Most likely not. In this
video interview, at 24:40, Swen explained that the Max Party Size will be 4. It will be possible to increase it to 6 with mods, but it will be 4 only in the game.
Party. Will there be the possibility to create a party of 4 Custom Player Characters ? Yes.
Source : Reddit AMA.
Companions. How many will there be ? Unknown.
The number of 8 companions is the one that keeps coming back in the community. [
Swen may have mentioned this number in one of the first video communications, around February-August 2020. Or it's only derived from the data-mining done on the early patches, which found 3 NPC meant to be companions. Look it up.]
Companions. Will they all be Origins Characters ? It looks as if this will be the case, yes.
Larian said they are "trying to make all characters with backstory available as origin characters".
Source : Reddit AMA.
Companions. Will it be possible to change the Class of Origin Characters ? Yes.
Source : official FAQ.
Mercenaries. How will they work ? What does Larian mean by Mercenaries ? Unclear. To the best of my knowledge, all we know is that there will be a mechanics/feature called "Mercenary". What this term implies exactly is unknown.
Party and companions. Will we have to settle on a party composition after Act 1 ? Yes.
Source : official FAQ.
CHARACTER CREATION AND CUSTOMISATION Starting Ability Scores. Will we be able to roll for them, or freely assign them ? Rolling and Point Buy will be available.
Source : official FAQ.
Larian said they would implement 2 or 3 ways of determining your starting Ability Scores, so they might allow Free Allocation as well, or variants of Rolling and Point Buy.
Source : Twinfinite interview.
Will there be all the PHB content ? Will there be content from other books ? Larian said that they would have all the PHB classes, and that they are generally using the PHB, DMG and MM as base (these books form, basically, the Base Game of D&D 5E), although they allow themselves the option to include material from other books.
Source : Reddit AMA. Then, somewhere else [
maybe in PFH3 (Patch 5), I think, find Source] Swen said that they aim to implement the full range of options from the PHB.
If something is in the PHB, you should expect to see it in the game. Although Larian merely aims to implement the full PHB. Some things might be left out. In fact, it is quite likely that some Spells or Feats will be.
If something is not the in PHB, nothing prevents Larian from adding it anyway (for instance, they added the Githyanki Race from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes). But you should probably not expect to see a given particular option from of a complement book (like Xanathar's Guide To Everything or Tasha's Cauldron Of Everything, basically the Expansions of D&D 5E) to be implemented.
Player options. Will multi-classing be available ? Yes.
Source : Reddit AMA.
In
PFH 3 (Patch 5), at 52:38, Swen reconfirmed the feature. It may be made available in late EA, but maybe not. Either way, it will be in the game.
META Can I trust the information in this Unofficial FAQ ? Yes and no.
On the one hand, as much as possible, I have given links to the source where Larian made the relevant statements (sometimes, this referencing is incomplete : please let me know if you recall where something was said, or find mistakes). The speculative parts should be easy to identify.
On the other hand, Larian may have made some announcements in the past, and have then changed their minds. In some cases, this change is clear from playing the EA version (e.g. past tense narration), or the change was discussed (e.g.
party-based initiative). In some cases, it is unclear if the announced feature will be implemented as announced (e.g.
Long Rest impossible in dangerous areas). In some cases, changes may have been decided but not communicated. I would guess that, without further information, it is probably safer to bet your money on a particular feature being implemented in the form it was announced to take, rather that in one of the many forms it was not announced to take.
Additional notes. - As you can see, the referencing is not complete at the moment. I have marked the things for which I still need to find the place(s) where they were said. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
- Also, let me know if you can think of other questions about how BG3 will be like, for which Larian has made an announcement, or which are recurring. I might add them to the list (or not, it will depend and I will see, no promise here).
