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Baldur’s Gate 3 will miss its expected early access August launch date

Tom Caswell
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The long-awaited third entry in the Baldur’s Gate series was meant to release in early access sometime this month, but developer Larian Studios confirmed in a tweet that the game would miss that window. CEO Swen Vincke was optimistic in June that the early access launch would arrive on time, but mentioned that working from home due to the pandemic had made hitting that target a lot harder, as it has done with many developers.

There isn’t an updated time frame for the new release date from Larian, but the studio mentioned in the same tweet that it is coming sooner rather than later. Its Panel From Hell livestream will provide that information at 10 a.m. PT on August 18 via its Twitch and the Summer Game Fest YouTube channel.

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Good news and bad news. BG3 won’t hit August, but it’s just around the corner. We’ll be announcing the release date, as well as big news on the Panel From Hell alongside @geoffkeighley, @LarAtLarian and the Larian crew. Tune in Aug 18th. https://t.co/S1RlVpJ8yw pic.twitter.com/NCkrnHHpH0

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) August 4, 2020

Baldur’s Gate, one of BioWare’s first games, is an iconic and beloved RPG that helped pave the way for the genre. The game and its sequel, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, as well as the expansions, were all released at the turn of the century. The series was an official tie-in to the juggernaut tabletop RPG series Dungeons & Dragons, with complications over the rights to the game resulting in no Baldur’s Gate 3 for nearly two decades, despite some studios’ best efforts.

In that time, there had been many attempts at a Baldur’s Gate-style game, including Larian’s own Divinity: Original Sin. The studio had tried and failed to obtain the rights to Dungeon’s & Dragons after presenting their game to its creators, Wizards of the Coast. That didn’t stop Larian Studios, catching wind the maker of the tabletop RPG was impressed with what they were seeing in the development of the sequel to Divinity. It was after the release of Divinity: Original Sin II that the gatekeepers of Dungeons & Dragons were won over.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was officially revealed at Google Stadia’s summer 2019 showcase, and since then news has slowly trickled out, with Larian and Google stating earlier in the year the game would release initially as early access. Fans of the series had been waiting for years for a third game, and it sounds like their patience won’t have to last for too much longer.

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