The official release date changed to August 3rd for PC players. That also applies to players who purchase the game on release date. So it's not that those who purchased the game in early access get the full game earlier than anyone else. August 30th is no longer the official release date so we get 3 weeks early access. August 3rd is the official release date for PC players and September 6th for PS 5 players.
The game was sold with 72 hour early access if you got the digital deluxe version. If you compare this to other games sold it means you can start playing the game almost as soon as it becomes available for download instead of having to wait extra.
So Larian has made some confusion for the players by stating tht everybody can play it from August 3rd (not mentioning July 31st as early access). If they wanted August 3rd for the players who purchased the early access version they could have solved that by saying August 6th as the official release date with August 3rd for those to purchase the game prior to August 6th. Then they would have got their August 3rd true release date and kept the 72 hour early access to the players. If they had done that no players would have been confused and everybody would have been very happy since they got the game earlier than anticipated.
Another issue Larian hasn't mentioned is if the release on August 3rd is at Midnight in every time zone or August 3rd at a fixed global time like 12pm CET / 6am EST etc. If not something else mentioned I would expect the game to be released on 00:01 August 3rd my local time.
I also wonder how we convert the early access game in Steam into the full version (digital deluxe version). I heard Larian speaking about some codes being sent to us that we can use to unlock the digital deluxe version. With other Steam games I've purchased in early access the game has just started working as a full game on the actual release date after installing an upgrade that got installed seamlessly without me having to enter any codes. I hope Steam will have a similar method for BG 3 full version so we don't have to uninstall the early access version and then get a new one.
It's also strange that Steam only has the early access version available and not the collectors editor or digital deluxe version. At the moment it seems the digital deluxe version is only available to purchase for PS 5 players. So I expect Steam has quite a lot of work to do around PC release time to make it possible to purchase all versions of BG 3.
Having said this I don't mind if we all have to wait for August 3rd to play BG 3 and not get the 72 hour early access. We still get the game earlier than expected and 3 days extra will pass by very fast. It's the confusion that Larian created that needs to be sorted out. Some say that what Swen Vincke said in PFH is the only thing that matters, but it has happened before that CEO's haven't thought about the impact of all changes mentioned. That is probably why we now hear silence from Larian. They have the needed discussion what should be the official statement about the actual PC release and then we will get all the answers we need. If it had been any other company than Larian then I guess we should prepare for the worst possible outcome, but Larian like to make players happy so I guess they're discussing if it's feasible to release act 1 on July 31st for owners of the early access version. Technically I don't think Larian would have any problems making July 31st since the game seems to be in a release state (according to superfans who tested the real version after the last PFH). The game will go gold very soon.
The main reason for sticking with August 3rd for all is that then they might claim there never was a confusion and all the official info they sent out was correct. If they have to backtrack and claim July 31st for some players then some will attack them for that as well. Therefore I think Larian will just inform everybody about details about the actual release and stick to August 3rd. Then they don't have to limit any players to act 1 the first 3 days of playing. That's easier to manage.
