Community Update #5 - Early Access

What is Early Access? What are your expectations? Everyone has a different answer to this, depending on the experience they’re looking for, or their objectives that lead them to shipping a game into Early Access. Regardless how you define it, buying an Early Access game needs to be an informed decision and today we come here to inform.

We’re going to cover a bunch of topics discussed on the 18th’s Panel From Hell, where Geoff, Swen, Adam and Chris talked in some depth about not just Early Access, but also Avernus, first of the nine hells and the setting of the game’s tutorial.

The full Panel From Hell is a pretty lengthy watch, but it’s just below here.

If you made it all the way to the end, you learned we’re aiming to launch Baldur’s Gate 3 into Early Access on September 30. The Steam page has been updated to more accurately describe what we’ll be releasing first. While the content will be limited, there should be enough bells and whistles to make it a fun, engaging experience.

Early Access will feature around 20-25 hours of gameplay in a single play-through, with performance captured dialogues and cut-scenes, voice overs for most dialogs, multiplayer (but no split-screen for now), several translations available (but not all) and an Act 1 story that should feel fulfilling to play through many multiple times, with multiple characters. At the start of Early Access, support for custom characters will consist of 6 classes and 9 races, with several subclasses and subraces included. You won’t be able to play as an origin character yet but you will be able to recruit 5 of them as companions when your journey commences.

Here’s a little about who you’re likely to meet on the road to Baldur’s Gate:

Shadowheart A loyal cleric of Shar, Shadowheart is the sole survivor of a holy mission undertaken for the Mistress of the Night. She alone must deliver a relic of immense power while threatened by foes on all sides, and a strange, untamed magic burgeoning from within.

Wyll Noble by birth, Wyll made his name as the heroic 'Blade of Frontiers'. But to become a living legend, he made a bargain with a devil - and he now longs to break free before it consumes him for good.

Lae'zel Lae'zel is a ferocious warrior, mighty even by the standards of a githyanki crèche. Faced with transforming into the very monster she's sworn to destroy, Lae'zel must prove herself worthy of rejoining her people - if they don't execute her first.

Astarion Astarion prowled the night as a vampire spawn for centuries, serving a sadistic master until he was snatched away. Now he can walk in the light and has the chance at a new life, but how long can he keep his past buried?

Gale Gale is a Waterdhavian wizard prodigy whose love for a goddess made him attempt something no mortal should. Blighted by the forbidden magic of ancient Netheril, Gale needs to undo the corruption that is overtaking him, a corruption that threatens to destroy the lives of thousands.

We’ll go into the exact available classes, sub-classes, and races a little closer to launch as we