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

Im well aware Larian haven't announced it so please spare me any sarcasm,

I just want to see when the community thinks the full release date will be?

Thanks

July 18 2022, 10h PST.

As late as possible.

I'd rather
(a) not have Larian run short of money and find themselves forced to ship the game, and
(b) that Larian takes the time to address the numerous issues the current version has, many of which are with very basic things (UI, controls, etc) which have nothing to do with vision.
The second point is a matter of will, which will be what it will be, so let's hope they don't find themselves forced to ship to pay bills and salaries.

Probably sometime in 2022.

I would be happy if they released it in fall of 2021.
But more realistically, spring 2022. I hope they are working on the plot, and not changing all mechanics and style only because small group of people don't like it.

I'm kinda worried that they've already spent 4 years and all we have is one chapter, 4 levels, no multiclass and almost no companions.

It doesn't look good given there was a whopping 3 month gap between patch 3 and patch 4. No idea about the release date but considering this abysmal update rate its definitely not going to be in 2021.

Jan 10 2023

As others have said, as late as possible. The game has so many issues to fix -- Droth Malorn's list is a good start -- and it would be sad if it got it rushed to the end. So far I see no signs of rushing so I'm voting for "when it's done"

I'm pretty happy with where it is at, especially with a pandemic over Christmas. OK. I kinda hate the nautiloid, and lots of the up to the grove. But only because it took me ages to accept that if you have a Tav you have a Tav and you don't need to recreate your character to get the name or the voice you want and so run through the beginning again

They are listening to feedback, and making changes. Maybe not all the changes, but not everyone agrees anyway. There will be a lot of things held back for the final release, and I would expect most of early access to focus on mechanical find tuning, both the engine and the 5e flavour. Also AI. Some of the monster tactics have gotten sneaky. There is probably enough content to test that. There probably needs to be a bit of drip fed content to keep enough interest up to keep on testing. Then there is the 80:20 rule or more likely 90:10 the last 10 percent takes 90 percent of your resources.

All that said, I think they could release something complete in a year to 18 months. They might be able to release something by the end if this year, and they have picked up staff, but that sort of timeline might put unnecessary pressure on the team and leave things feeling rushed. But a lot of it will depend on choices about what to include and what to leave for later, both in terms of story and features.

I'm definitely hoping for something like a Q3 or Q4 2022 release because this game has a lot of issues. It has a lot of great stuff too, hence why I feel invested in it. But don't Game of Thrones me, man. Don't show me a great start and fail to stick the landing. Then I'll hate it more than if it just always sucked.

We have no idea how far along they are in house. They could very easily have all the classes done; Multi classing, higher level spells etc. As this is EA why would they release all of this at once, better to do a few things at a time to get feedback and make changes and then tease us with more

That said I agree, late 2021 at the earliest and more likely spring/summer 2022.

I really hope it won't be anytime this year. A lot of cheese grinding is needed to make this anything remotely like a classic.

Exactly. I'm pretty sure, and it would make sense, that Larian has way more done than a part of Act 1

If I recall correctly, only a small percentage of Larian's team was working on EA, about 10%, while the rest forge ahead and work on act 2 and beyond. And it was, I believe, a 2 month gap. (Patch 3 launched December, Patch 4 launched February.)

If we expect them to integrate our suggestions, I don't think that matters much. A lot of what people are identifying are pretty fundamental issues.

Yeah but this patch was pretty small given the wait time. COVID is screwing up everything for everyone. We got some bug fixes, a small amount of new content and one core class. If this game is going to be a successor to Baldur's Gate 2 it's going to about 2 years from now. A Sept release would guarantee that it would become another "play it and forget it" game.

Autumn or Christmas 2022 for my money. Before that I'd have concerns; not because I don't like the EA but because I've been waiting 25 years for this...

It was actually pretty significant. They re-worked a lot of story beats and recorded a bunch of voice lines (the Nettie scene, Astarion's intro, companions butt in FAR more often now). And September is not going to be the release date. 2022 looks likely, imo.

probably late 2022

Most of the things that are complained about seem to be generic simple issues related to 5e rules ( like changing a few numbers used in formulae, or switching on/off features ). They may be fundamental issues for those that complain, but they are not particularly heavy on development time.

The things that take real time are art assets, environmental design, acting/voicing, animation, pathing the story, scripting cutscenes and adding the "physical" in-game manifestations ( mainly involving vfx and animation ) of as yet unimplemented rules/setting content.

I have no idea whether Larian will "fix" any of those fundamental issues ( I suspect some will be, not all ), but they will have almost no impact on the release timescale. Without current;y having even the full extent of Act 1 or PHB content available, it is difficult to judge how long the game will be in EA, but unless Larian are really sandbagging, it won't release until 2022 or later.