Baldur's Gate III News

[Antimatter]

While we don't have any news about a shifted release date, there is a confirmation directly from Larian's Director of publishing about the release period issue.





The thread is about Redfall, a game that has a lot of problems regarding the release period as well (plus a similar Xbox issue). More context:

 

[Cahir]

A new FR lore video from WolfheartFPS.

 

[Cahir]

A new lore video courtesy of WolfheartFPS, this time with a very special guest.

 

[O_Bruce]

Apparently, Baldur's Gate 3's price has been rised in several countries just recently. Notably in Poland, its price rose from 199 PLN to 249 PLN. This concerns PC version.
Source: gram.pl

As for me, if Larian goes with eternal early access, then raises the price shortly before the release day, then I guess I'll just wait for some sale.

 

[Cahir]

Apparently, Baldur's Gate 3's price has been rised in several countries just recently. Notably in Poland, its price rose from 199 PLN to 249 PLN. This concerns PC version.
Source: gram.pl

As for me, if Larian goes with eternal early access, then raises the price shortly before the release day, then I guess I'll just wait for some sale.

Yeah, noticed that too. I wouldn't be that concerned, if they were open about it, not squeezing this price increase silently. Original price was very competitive and I guess longstanding inflation going up was a factor to make that move.

 

[Antimatter]

So, to just give some insight from the game industry here. Regional pricing is a totally different subject and usually being handled based on the platform's recommendations (in this case, Valve's). Sometimes, publishers want to pursue substantial fluctuations of USD vs local currency.

If I could make an assumption, I think it's the following.

Considering there haven't been any major fluctuations between USD/EUR just now, the recent change for BG3 might look weird, but in reality, I think it's Larian just catching up and preparing for the full release in August. After all, 3 years ago the regional pricing was very different, see



And a lot has changed over these 3 years:

You can check regional pricing for BG3 here, including the best historical results. Obviously, the economic recession in Europe (caused by things like the war, etc) led to decisions like this, as the Polish currency is tied to Euro as well.

From their Steam FAQ for BG3:

"Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“The price of the game will remain $59.99 USD / £49.99 GBP / 59,99€ EUR at launch. As Steam makes periodic changes to their recommended regional pricing to reflect changes in purchasing power and currencies around the world, the price in other currencies may change to reflect Steam’s most recent recommendations.”

 

[Antimatter]

We've suspected for quite some time that there won't be a lvl 10 cap in the game, now we have the confirmation (lvl 11 at least):

 

[Zaxares]

Woah, August 31 is precisely my birthday! XD

 

[Antimatter]

Yesterday it was revealed Jason Isaacs had joined the cast of Baldur's Gate 3 as Lord Enver Gortash.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Yesterday it was revealed Jason Isaacs had joined the cast of Baldur's Gate 3 as Lord Enver Gortash.

Jason Isaacs is a cool and convincing actor, many know him as Lucuis Malfoy, or as Captain Lorca from Star Trek: Discovery, and it's great that more movie actors participate in video games, because it's just as much a form of entertainment and art.

What I really don't understand is how the marketing folks at Larian couldn't come up with a more catchy, convincing and especially more generally directed trailer clip for the freaking Summer Game Fest introduction stream 2 months before the freaking game release that has spent years in Early Access.

I could totally understand showing that video on one of their own panels, to people who have been following the (scarce) news about the game.

But Gods and Nine Hells, for a general gamer audience? How on Faerun is this video going to tell people what Baldur's Gate 3 is about, what's so cool about it, why they should play it, if they didn't have it on their radar until now? It's completely out of context, showing a seemingly random snippet of the game. Sure, with an actor's name and all, but Jason Isaacs isn't enough to simply catch the attention of everyone.

Now would have been the time to show something on par with the announcement trailer, or the release date trailer, with big images, and an overview of companions, classes, a story teaser, whatever. Something flashy that tells people to remember this is happening soon, and why they should want it.

Such a niche video says nothing to anyone except for those who have been following anyway.

Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

 

[Antimatter]

Yeah, sounds like a missed opportunity. For some reason, they decided to focus on their own show instead.



"Baldur’s Gate 3 is much, much bigger than we had envisioned when we started this journey roughly 5 years ago. Looking at what’s in Act 1 Early Access right now, it’s fair to say that you’ve really only seen a glimmer of the full experience to come. In July, you’ll begin to get a more complete look not just at how far Baldur’s Gate 3 has come, but where it’s been heading all these years in development. We know you’re really eager to hear about all the playable races & classes in the game. It’s coming."

Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #19: Mechs and the City - Steam News

Return to Baldur's Gate for the first time in 20 years as the city prepares for war

store.steampowered.com

 

[Antimatter]

Does this sound like the main character will be getting full VO?

 

[Cahir]

Does this sound like the main character will be getting full VO?

If your assumption is correct, then... HELL, YEAH!!!

The prospect of silent protagonist was (is?) single the most jarring issue I had with BG3 (without playing the game, of course). With Larian's focus on cinematics and voice acting, it felt completely illogical to ruin the effect with a silent main character. It just... it looked amateurish.

It's just weird... they haven't advertised this at all. This is why I'm a little bit concerned if Antimatter's guess is correct. Looks like, but I'd be calmer if Larian confirms this.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Does this sound like the main character will be getting full VO?

Of course it's very vague, but yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. If it were only interjections and battle cries, it would have been less text?

So maybe it's not fully voiced, but as long as we don't have the mutely gesticulating puppet in cutscenes, it would be so great. If there are long text dialogues in other parts, I'd be OK with having the first lines voiced only, but of course fully voiced would be best.

I just can't understand why they never mentioned that before. It only confirms again that they don't seem to be monitoring community discussions at all, neither on their own forums nor reddit etc, because it has been heavily discussed for a long time.
I mean, we have realized that apart from the unidirectional communication style of their panels, they seem to have been focusing on Twitter and TikTok, but it really, really makes me wonder what their PR and marketing people are doing, because surely they must have them.

Not saying a company should do what the fans want, but wouldn't it be normal to keep tabs on the most discussed topics and throw them a bone now and then?

 

[Cahir]

I mean, we have realized that apart from the unidirectional communication style of their panels, they seem to have been focusing on Twitter and TikTok, but it really, really makes me wonder what their PR and marketing people are doing, because surely they must have them.

They seem to focus and trust faith entirely in their Panel From Hell events, completely ignoring more steady and frequent marketing events. Their Larian Gazette should be just a small addition to their marketing activities, not the core of it.

Also, they do focus to share big voice acting names (like J.K Simmons, Jason Isaacs or Matthew Mercer), and each of those reveals would be a perfect occasion to confirm the voiced protagonist. I get the feeling they will reveal it on 7th of June, during the last Panel From Hell, but knowing them it will be just apparent from the gameplay showcase, without even mentioning it.

They really should take an example from Bethesda's show. You can say anything about Bethesda, but they wiped the floor with Starfield Direct. It was the best direct I've seen for a good while.

 

[Antimatter]

You can hear the voice of that actor from this short video reminding of the initial Larian approach towards narration (before they switched to Amelia Tyler).



However, I dug deeper. Joshua Wichard claimed 4203 lines had been recorded, which is just a fraction of what other VO actors involved in BG3 had declared for companions before (Neil Newbon, the VO of Astarion, had claimed 30K+, for example). And we also have to subtract all those old narration lines from 4203.

So it sounds increasingly likely the main character will voice only some occasional bark or special dialogue here and there and for the rest will remain a mute protagonist.

If it's indeed like that, I'm sad. A voiced protagonist is very important for me to bring my character alive and make them feel present in the game world, ESPECIALLY when other characters in the game are fully voiced, and with the level of their cinematics in dialogues.

 

[Antimatter]

On a different note, when someone says about the so-called "Larian writing" in BG3, here is something to consider. In addition to their previous writing team, Larian got Lawrence Schick for BG3.

Schick created White Plume Mountain in 1979, an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published by TSR in 1979; the adventure was incorporated into the Greyhawk setting after the publication of the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1980).  White Plume Mountain was ranked the 9th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004; one judge, commenting on the ingenuity required to complete the adventure, described it as "the puzzle dungeon to end all puzzle dungeons".

He was a lead writer for The Elder Scrolls Online. He joined ZeniMax Online Studios in May 2009 as lead content designer for ESO. He was promoted to lead content writer in 2010, and in 2011 was promoted again to lead loremaster.

 

[Antimatter]

AAAAAND! A LOT OF NEWS!

Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #20: A Dragonborn, a Half-Orc & a Monk Walk Into a Tavern - Steam News

Where to begin. This week has seen you take to the streets of the Lower City as amateur sleuths in Blood in Baldur’s Gate, a community murder mystery to uncover the hidden darkness that lurks just beneath the city's surface. Where will the investigation lead? Keep digging, detectives, you’re...

store.steampowered.com

Highlights:

• Baldur’s Gate 3 will first come to PC on August 3rd, before launching on PlayStation 5 a few weeks later on September 6th
• Baldur’s Gate 3 features 11 races, with 31 subraces
• A total of 46 subclasses, nearly half of them new, across all 12 classes
• With the addition of Karlach, the number of Origin characters now rises to six. She will join Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Wyll like a well-meaning, devil-fighting bat out of hell, rounding out the moral spectrum of playable characters from good to bad, and the shades of grey between. But she won't be the final Origin - you'll have to tune in to next week’s Panel From Hell: Release Showcase for that
• Baldur's Gate 3 players will be able to reach Level 12, unlocking Planar Allies, Otto’s Irresistible Dance, and Chain Lightning
• You'll have a total of 37 possible feats to choose from
• Baldur's Gate 3 will have over 600 player spells and sub-spells at launch, and that doesn't even include upcasting
• At launch, in addition to ‘Normal mode’ (which can be considered our default), players may avail of the Story Mode and the Hardcore mode
• A script roughly 2,000,000 words in length
• It has 174 hours of cinematics

Extra: Multiclassing was confirmed in this post:
https://blog.playstation.com/2023/0...cter-creation-and-companions-out-september-6/

 

[Cahir]

AAAAAND! A LOT OF NEWS!

Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #20: A Dragonborn, a Half-Orc & a Monk Walk Into a Tavern - Steam News

Where to begin. This week has seen you take to the streets of the Lower City as amateur sleuths in Blood in Baldur’s Gate, a community murder mystery to uncover the hidden darkness that lurks just beneath the city's surface. Where will the investigation lead? Keep digging, detectives, you’re...

store.steampowered.com

Highlights:

• Baldur’s Gate 3 will first come to PC on August 3rd, before launching on PlayStation 5 a few weeks later on September 6th
• Baldur’s Gate 3 features 11 races, with 31 subraces
• A total of 46 subclasses, nearly half of them new, across all 12 classes
• With the addition of Karlach, the number of Origin characters now rises to six. She will join Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Wyll like a well-meaning, devil-fighting bat out of hell, rounding out the moral spectrum of playable characters from good to bad, and the shades of grey between. But she won't be the final Origin - you'll have to tune in to next week’s Panel From Hell: Release Showcase for that
• Baldur's Gate 3 players will be able to reach Level 12, unlocking Planar Allies, Otto’s Irresistible Dance, and Chain Lightning
• You'll have a total of 37 possible feats to choose from
• Baldur's Gate 3 will have over 600 player spells and sub-spells at launch, and that doesn't even include upcasting
• At launch, in addition to ‘Normal mode’ (which can be considered our default), players may avail of the Story Mode and the Hardcore mode
• A script roughly 2,000,000 words in length
• It has 174 hours of cinematics

Extra: Multiclassing was confirmed in this post:
https://blog.playstation.com/2023/0...cter-creation-and-companions-out-september-6/

That's really huge! I got the feeling Larian would try to escape the previous launch window because of Starfield, especially after watching Starfield Direct, but I thought they'll rather delay it for quite a bit.

What they actually did is quite genius and means they are risking a bit, or they are 100% confident about the current state of the game. Not only they managed to avoid overlap with Starfield, but players will be able to play it for a good while before Starfield. And if they hit the nail, people will rather finish it first, before jumping to Starfield. And setting PS5 launch date roughly the same time as Starfield will cost them nothing, because Starfield is not present on PS5. Brilliant.

As for what they revealed: dragonborn, half-orcs and monks were basically confirmed for the release before, but these look all amazing. I love the huge number of dragonborn subraces and the animations they gave to monks. It really looks fantastic. What they really caught me off guard are the number of new subclassess. Many were of course expected, others were very much requested, but some were also a surprise. It will be a difficult task to roll a character in this game.

I get the feeling that players who prefer good characters (without the shades of gray) won't have that many options to choose from. The new companion, Karlach, seems to be a good-aligned, but with an evil taint (this looks to be a habit for Larian NPC designers). Of course, we still don't know all of the origin (or companion) characters that will be available for the party, so maybe we'll get a last minute surprising reveal.

Also, 2M words and 174 hours of cinematics. This is crazy, mind-boggling. The scale of this game. No wonder they developed it for so long.

Can't wait for August!

 

[mlnevese]

I really like the 1-10 level range. You are not too powerful. High level playing never attracted me.