Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hades have made me an early access believer

Tomas Franzese
By

Until recently, early access games — which allow players to buy, play and provide feedback on games during development — still had a bad rap in my mind. Half-baked games that took advantage of the process (like DayZ, Godus, and The Stomping Land) are what still came to mind whenever I’d see an early access label on Steam or the Epic Games Store. I’d refused to even play many early access games because I was worried they’d go unfinished or not live up to expectations.

I’m finally coming around though, and that’s thanks to two recent success stories. Hades, one of my favorite games of the past decade, and Baldur’s Gate 3, the Dungeons & Dragon RPG currently taking the gaming industry by storm, both started as early access games. Each came out of early access as such fully formed, enriching experiences that it’s begun to reshape my perspective on how powerful a tool early access can be.

Recommended Videos

The benefits of early access

I remember actively not being that interested in Hades back when it was announced in December 2018, and that was because it was an early-access title. The joke was on me; I felt like quite the fool when I finally got around to playing it at launch in 2020, and it became one of my favorite games of all time. I was in a similar boat with Baldur’s Gate 3, which I originally got access to on Google Stadia but didn’t play that much until its August 3 launch. Fool me twice and all that.

Astrion holds his chin in Baldur's Gate 3.
Larian Studios

Now, I’m starting to more easily accept the strengths of the practice and what it can do for developers. It allows them to earn some revenue back earlier in the development process and lets them work with the community to balance and refine the game’s core ideas. While Larian Studios declined to discuss Baldur’s Gate 3’s early access process with Digital Trends, these sentiments are still reflected in the public early access messaging for games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hades.

Related

“We’ve learned that working directly with our players during development makes our games better,” a now-deleted explanation of Larian’s early access reasoning on Baldur’s Gate 3’s Steam page explains. “RPGs this large, with so many permutations, thrive from feedback as new features and fixes are incrementally added to the game. Early Access gives players a chance to participate in development, and it gives us an opportunity to explore different game ideas with a live community. We want to learn how you play the game and use that to make it a better experience for everyone.”

This earnest messaging is common with early access titles, even failed ones. That’s ultimately why games that get abandoned in early access sting so hard. Fans feel like they’re getting in on the ground floor of the development of a fantastic game but are then screwed over by the team they invested in and trusted. That’s a worst-case early access scenario, but titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hades took the exact opposite approach.

Both of those games have heaps of dialogue, deep RPG systems, and impressive player freedom — all things that require a lot of iteration and fine-tuning to perfect. Of course, they go about those things differently because Hades is a roguelike and Baldur’s Gate 3 is a CRPG, but the fact that both games have such player-focused systems made them prime candidates for early access. There’s no better way to playtest than by releasing the game to thousands of players.

Hades gameplay with a bow.
Supergiant Games

Still, these games weren’t free of criticism while in early access. The buggy state of Baldur’s Gate 3 at its 2020 release, how it didn’t contain anything past Act 1, and the fact that no saves could be carried over were all sore points. A Screen Rant article from 2022 even theorized that “games like Baldur’s Gate 3 can spend years in early access, meaning that players who were excited about the game at first are more likely to grow bored of it by the time it is officially released.” It turns out that this kind of sentiment isn’t exactly true.

Games like Baldur’s Gate 3 can greatly benefit from years of early access, allowing for systems that feel even more intuitive and customizable than those in games players don’t have access to until day one. By gestating in early access for a few years, these experiences can feel even more finely tailored and get wider attention through word of mouth. And, as Baldur’s Gate 3’s success has shown, if the game is good, it will get a lot of attention, allowing those who played from day one in early access to feel like they were a pivotal part of a successful game’s journey.

In hindsight, it’s clear that I’d neglected tons of early access successes over the past several years. Lots of fantastic indie games have gone through the early access progress, like Darkest Dungeon and its sequel, Dave the Diver, Rogue Legacy 2, and Vampire Survivors. Even some games currently in early access are massive hits, like Valheim, Core Keeper, and Battlebit Remastered. Fortnite, one of the biggest games in the world, was in early access for years. While my own stigma is rooted in the program’s earliest days on Steam, the last several years have proven that we’re far past that outdated view of early access.

It doesn’t necessarily wipe away the sins of all the early access horror stories over the past decade. Still, games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hades stand as testaments to the strengths that can come from going down that path. Plus, they’ve given me a more open mind while approaching early access titles in the future. I’m now more likely to give upcoming games like Witchfire, Life by You, and Enshrouded my full attention throughout their early access periods. I’m more excited to watch games grow over time and hopefully get to experience the next Baldur’s Gate 3-level hit early.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Baldur’s Gate 3 drops Series S splitscreen support to release on Xbox in 2023
Jaheira in Baldur's Gate 3.

Larian Studios promises to release Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox Series X/S later this year after pushing the game back because of performance problems on Xbox Series S.
Baldur's Gate 3 is available now on PC and will come out for PS5 on September 6, but an Xbox Series X/S version won't be available for a little bit longer. In a July 2023 community update, developer Larian Studios explained that this is because it needed "to ensure that the game is performing without compromise across the entire Xbox X/S ecosystem, in multiplayer and with split-screen. The Xbox Series X version was running fine, but the Xbox Series S version of the game was struggling a lot more. The Xbox versions of Baldur's Gate 3 didn't have a release window until now, when Larian Studios co-founder Swen Vincke took to X to confirm it'd come to Xbox platforms before the end of the year. That said, it will exclude one notable feature.
"Super happy to confirm that after meeting [Phil Spencer] yesterday, we’ve found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we’ve been working towards for quite some time," Vincke wrote. "All improvements will be there, with split-screen coop on Series X. Series S will not feature split-screen co-op, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series."
Thankfully, it looks like Xbox players won't have to wait too much longer to play this excellent game, but it will be one of the first games to notably drop a major feature between the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions. This follows comments by Head of Xbox Phil Spencer where he said he doesn't believe Microsoft will drop support for Xbox Series S in the foreseeable future. "I want to make sure games are available on both, that's our job as a platform holder and we're committed to that with our partners," Spencer told Eurogamer. "And I think we're gonna get there with Larian. So I'm not overly worried about that, but we've learned some stuff through it. Having an entry-level price point for console, sub-$300, is a good thing for the industry."
 
Baldur's Gate 3 is available now for PC, launches for PS5 on September 6, and will finally come out for Xbox Series X/S before the end of 2023.

Read more
I beat Baldur’s Gate 3 in 30 hours (and killed everyone in the process)
Gale talks to the player in Baldur's Gate 3.

Baldur's Gate 3 is such a long game that even though millions have played it, far fewer have seen the ending. Only 0.4% of players have gotten the Hero of the Forgotten Realms achievement for beating the game at the time of this writing, according to Steam. It's a game someone can put dozens of hours into, with no end remotely in sight.
That is. unless you beat it way earlier than you were supposed to.
During the climax of Act 2 in Baldur's Gate 3, I accidentally reached a premature ending -- one that my party members weren't too happy about. The ramifications of the ending definitely weren't good for the Forgotten Realms, but finding a way to wrap up Baldur's Gate 3 early just gave me an ever deeper appreciation for how personal each player's journey through this game can feel. 
Note: This article contains major spoilers for Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3.
One last gust of Weave
Anyone who has played Baldur's Gate 3 probably knows Gale, the smooth-talking wizard who you can pull out of a portal early on in Act 1. Throughout that Act, I had to keep giving him magical artifacts to satiate some sort of curse he has, although their positive effects on Gale dulled with each new item. After doing this enough, I learned the truth: Gale was cursed by the God Mystra after betraying her. At the start of Act 2, though, Gale's former mentor, Elminster, arrives and tells Gale that Mystra has a new task for him: destroy the "Heart of the Absolute" with a Netherese Orb Blast that will essentially nuke and destroy everything around him.

This option appeared alongside Gale's other spells in menus throughout the entirety of Act 2, although using the Netherese Orb Blast early typically results in a message that said my party had been defeated and tasked me with reloading. But there is a real opportunity to use it and end things at the end of Act 2. Most of this section of the game is spent finding a way to defeat Ketheric Thorm, a Baldur's Gate 3 villain voiced by J.K. Simmons. I confronted him on top of Moonrise Towers with the help of Nightsong, who I freed, but before I could beat him, he retreated to a massive Illithid Colony underneath Moonrise Towers. Obviously, my party followed, ultimately stumbling upon Ketheric and two other villains -- Lord Enver Gortash and Orin the Red -- activating the Elder Brain that seemed to be the "Heart of the Absolute" that Gale needed to destroy.
Gale told me that this and asked me me for permission to explode and destroy everything. The first option is to tell him not to, which makes sense; there's still a whole third of the game left to play! But seeing that every major threat in Baldur's Gate 3 was here in one room and knowing how much the game had already taken over my life in a week, I told him yes.
After saying, "One last gust of Weave. One last gale to end them all," Gale blew himself up, and there was nothing else I could do as my Dream Visitor shouted, "No!" Gale blew up, killing Ketheric, Orin, Gortash, and the Elder Brain and granting me the Hero of the Forgotten Realms achievement you're supposed to get for beating Baldur's Gate 3. The post-explosion dialogue paints a gimmer future for the Forgotten Realms, though.
"Beneath the smoking ashes of Moonrise Towers, the elder brain lies destroyed," the narrator says. "But what of the tadpoles it commanded? Freed of the Absolute's control, they will complete their transformations. A plague of illithids will soon descend on the Sword Coast, enslaving all they do not affect." Credits rolled as I blankly stared at the screen, processing that this was the ending I'd worked toward.
An imperfect ending
This definitely isn't a good ending for Baldur's Gate 3; it's pretty terrible, actually. Still, the fact that I could do that speaks to a wider strength of the adventure. The best thing about Baldur's Gate 3 is how much choice it gives players. It's not just freedom in completing set objectives, but freedom to circumvent them entirely. The most fun I had with Baldur's Gate 3 was finding ways to avoid major boss fights or set pieces. Instead of picking a side in the attack on the Druid and Refugee camp, I destroyed the bridge Minthara could use to escape in the Goblin camp, killed her before having a conversation with her, and then pushed Dror Ragzlin off a ledge to kill him.

Read more
Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t on Nintendo Switch, but these 7 great CRPGs are
Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3.

Baldur's Gate 3 has taken the video game industry by storm over the last week, even though it's only available on PC. While it will launch for PlayStation 5 on September 6 and is likely to get an Xbox launch eventually, there's one platform that it doesn't look like Baldur's Gate 3 will come to: the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo's hybrid system is a great home to many more traditional RPGs, but even compared to Xbox, the choices for solid CRPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 are slim on Nintendo Switch.
Still, they aren't nonexistent, so if you don't own any other platform that will eventually be able to play Baldur's Gate 3, you do have some options. In particular, the following six games (and one that's coming out soon) are clearly inspired by tabletop and classic CRPGs, and players looking for a Nintendo Switch experience similar to Baldur's Gate 3 should them try out. 
Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Editions

While Baldur's Gate 3 isn't on Nintendo Switch, its predecessors are. There are actually six remastered Dungeons & Dragons CRPGs on Switch, but I obviously had to shout out the original two Baldur's Gate games. These titles, which were originally developed by BioWare and remastered by Beamdog, set the standards that most Western-developed RPGs have followed in the decades since. The first Baldur's Gate proved that video games could have deeper stories with more complex characters than were typically seen and have gameplay that was more open-ended and reactive to players in its design.
Its sequel, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is considered to be even better by some as it builds upon the very solid foundation that its predecessor established. While somewhat dated compared to some slicker modern RPGs, both of these games still hold up and are worth playing if you want to see the birthplace of many foundational RPG ideas. Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Editions can be bought for $50 on Nintendo Switch, and it includes both game and all of their DLC (plus some new content), along with the visually improved remaster treatment you'd expect. Instead of playing Baldur's Gate 3, you can appreciate these classics on Nintendo Switch.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

Read more