D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access

Baldur's Gate III is now available for early access on Steam and on Stadia.

I couldn't get the Steam version working on my Mac, but the Stadia version works just fine. The opening tutorial level is pretty gruesome (at one point I had to squish somebody's brain) and the mind flayer airship you're trying to escape from beings to mind the movie Aliens a lot.

Character creation is quick and easy, although options in the early access are limited. The gameplay is like Divinity Original Sin 2 with the 5E rules layered over it. I've only played an hour or so of the game, and as an early access game, it is occasionally a bit buggy, but nothing showstopping (yet).

This isn't a review (I haven't played enough of it to do that, and I don't think it's fair to review an early access version anyway); it's mainly just an alert to the few people who don't already know it's available. If any such person exists!

 

[CapnZapp]

I just read that the saves from early access wont work (IGN) once the game is fully released. Glad I waited

While you're not playing, we are...

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah I actually loaded a different save first time I got to those ruins because I thought that there must have been a way to resolve an encounter with named NPCs differently. I mean why even name them if you cannot interact with them outside combat? How would I even know their names? Speak with Dead?

Note: not talking about the pair where you have an actual conversation.

Talking about 5 or so bandits you meet slightly later. Since there was no dialogue, I assume there's no peaceful resolution.

 

[CapnZapp]

One thing I really liked was that even the individual goblins in the encampment were named. It made the world feel more real than if it were just a bunch of "goblin tracker" and "bugbear thug" critters.

As long as you can interact with them.

Not much of a point in seeing Bob and Sue if you can only kill or be killed.

 

[Seramus]

It would help if the player character weren't assumed to always be leader.
If you send someone charismatic to the front to take the face role, you would much easier be able to focus on your strengths.

Most of the time you can send a more charismatic character to talk, and the game even allows them to use their tags.
But yeah, the really important plot conversations are just you.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It would help if the player character weren't assumed to always be leader.

If you send someone charismatic to the front to take the face role, you would much easier be able to focus on your strengths.

You can - sort of. It has a tendency to flip back to the main character, and I suspect some conversations are flagged "main character only", but I managed to have companion Wyll do a good portion of the talking.

 

[Iry]

Shadowheart's problems do feel very "Shar". Memory gaps when you worship Shar? It couldn't be that the goddess of forgetfullness is manipulating you . . .
I think it would be possible to have her change gods or at least heavily reconsider her relation with her goddess down the line.

Spoiler

She's a cleric of Selûne that has been tricked into forgetting her faith. Quite the victory for Shar, at least until the player gets involved. I'm sure we will be able to influence her to stick with Shar or go back to Selûne later.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One thing to consider is all these character are playable, and as the PC they are free to make good or evil choices, so any of them could be played with any alignment.

 

[Nymrod]

It would help if the player character weren't assumed to always be leader.

One thing to consider is all these character are playable, and as the PC they are free to make good or evil choices, so any of them could be played with any alignment.

I guess it will be very interesting to play as Astarion

 

[CapnZapp]

One thing to consider is all these character are playable, and as the PC they are free to make good or evil choices, so any of them could be played with any alignment.

Do you mean "intended to be playable in the future" or "playable, present tense"?

 

[Burnside]

Do you mean "intended to be playable in the future" or "playable, present tense"?

In the future.

Larian has shown a 2-hour demo where Astarion is the player.