Fan-Favorite Dungeons & Dragons Game Finally Releasing Next Year
Finally, it's almost here!
Despite being available in Early Access for nearly a year and a half, the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios’ highly anticipated Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG, shouldn’t be expected to launch in 2022. In fact, the third installment in the Baldur’s Gate series will likely launch sometime next year, which enables the studio to deliver a game of the highest standard. But, unfortunately, no specific release window was given, let alone a release date.
According to Game Informer, Larian Studios’ head Swen Vincke stated that the Baldur’s Gate 3′s development team needs another year of development, adding that 2022 will be the final full year required for work on the game. Vincke also stated that the main goal is quality, so the game will release when it’s ready, and the team still needs a year to get the game to the desired quality level. This might sound brazen, but it’s actually really commendable, considering the sheer number of poorly-optimized gaming releases the audience received in the last few years, some of which are/were borderline unplayable. Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel’s Avengers, GTA: The Trilogy, and Battlefield 2042 are at the top of that very long list of poorly optimized games.
Though Vincke’s statement removes 2022 from the cards and places a sure bet on 2023, there’s no telling what could happen between now and then. Literarily anything could happen that would push back release expectations; just look at the effects COVID-19 had on the gaming scene and the world. That said, if everything goes according to plan, we can expect the final version of Baldur’s Gate 3 on our screens in 2023. Larian Studios is currently working on the final part of the Dungeons & Dragons-based game, followed by customary polishing and bug fixing, so the time required is more than reasonable.
These statements follow the announcement of the seventh major patch for Baldur’s Gate 3, called Absolute Frenzy, which adds fog-of-war mechanics to the map, and brings significant improvements to the stealth aspect of gameplay. It also adds an entirely new class, Barbarian, which seems like a must-have class of Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG games. The new class features two sub-classes that further specialize it, called Wildheart and Berserker, while the entire patch also adds more weapons mechanics and upgrades the game to almost 700 cinematic scenes — which is truly impressive by gaming standards.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was initially announced in 2019 when it was formally revealed during Google’s presentation of its now-demoted Stadia platform. The game was scheduled for a 2020 release, aiming at a September 30 release date, before it was delayed for a week, launching its Early Access on October 6, 2020. The Early Access, which grants gamers access to a playable-but-limited game in turn for funding, contained only the first act of the game, which equates to approx. 25 hours of content and one-fifth of the game’s overall map.
Dungeons & Dragons-based Baldur’s Gate 3 was the best-selling game on both Steam and GOG-com on the day of is Early Access launch, peaking with over 70 thousand concurrent players, which indicated strong interest in the game, as well as strong initial sales.
