Larian Studios-developed Baldur's Gate 3, the next installment in the long-running and critically-acclaimed series, will be available in Early Access form starting September 30th. The distribution will be made via Steam, and Larian says that gamers are in for a treat. Baldur's Gate 3 will have a much deeper initial Early Access plethora of features than their previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2. Some numbers comparing both releases, for clarity, are as follows: Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access will feature a total of 80 combat scenarios (22 in D:OSII); some 45,980 lines of dialog (17,600 in D:OSII); a total of 596 interactable characters (142 in D:OSII); and 146 available spells and actions (69 in D:OSII).
The relative length of the available content remains about the same (Larian estimates 20-30 hours of playtime in Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access content, the same as in D:OSII), but Larian says that Baldurs' Gate 3 is infinitely more replayable, with unprecedented player agency. System requirements aren't too high either, at least for an Early Access version of the game; however, Larian is quick to point out that these requirements will only go down - not up - as optimizations are achieved within the games' development. It seems that the engine feature set is already fixed, and that the studio isn't looking to upgrade it until the games' release. Look after the break for the Minimum and Recommended hardware configurations for this latest romp through the world of Dungeons & Dragons.