GamesRPGBaldur’s GateBaldur’s Gate 3’Work with the players … otherwise you shouldn’t be doing it': Heads at Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios say you ought to ‘really mean it’ going into early accessWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGBaldur’s GateBaldur’s Gate 3’Work with the players … otherwise you shouldn’t be doing it': Heads at Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios say you ought to ‘really mean it’ going into early accessWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
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(Image credit: BAFTA/Dan Fearon)
Baldur’s Gate 3 had a longearly access period—opening its doors in October 2020 before finally dropping in August 2023, almost three years (1,031 days, to be exact) later. It was a vastly different game to what it is now. For instance, I remember my inner D&D rules lawyer being very upset that firebolt made a damaging surface—that misstep, as well as a few others, were corrected for the better, producing what I’ll happily call one of the strongest RPGswe’ll see this decade.
“I don’t think [early access] is the futureof,because you never know what the future will bring,” Vincke answers. “For us, it’s been really good—I heartily recommend it, but you really have to mean it when you go in there. You have to work with the players on making your game better, otherwise you shouldn’t be doing it.”
What it feels like Vincke is warning against, here, is releasing an early access build as a preview you leave in the dust or, heaven forbid, an elaborate marketing scheme basedpurely on FOMO: “You need to take time for it … if you’re only in early access for a month or so, that’s fine too, but then it’s probably just to test some technical things and you have to be open about that.”
When asked about whether he’d recommend a similar three-year lifespan, Sven takes a moment, sighs heavily, and laughs: “My team is watching. No, it’s long—it’s actually quite long. I think the playerbase gets tired, also, I mean, we got tired in early access.” Still, he maintains, it’s important not to release or add to an early access game with features that are in a broken state—which is something Smith agrees with.
“You’ve sold someone a game,” Smith says. “They paid for a game. So you need to maintain it and you owe them that—you can’t just say, okay, that early access branch is now over there and we’re over here and it’s neglected. You can’t do that. So that’s a lot of effort, it’s difficult.”
The early access period of Baldur’s Gate 3 certainly didn’t drag its feet when it came to updates—over the course of three years it received nine major patches, adding new classes, spells, companion characters, and story beats. I know some players who sunk hundreds of hours into just mucking around Act 1 alone. I can’t relate (I dropped off after around 30 to wait for the full release, so I didn’t over-indulge) but it’s still mightily impressive that Larian tended to the game’s early access like a proper release while also developing, well, the other two thirds of it.
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We can probably expectwhatever Vincke & Co are cooking nextto have a similarly tended-to early access period, though I’ll rather selfishly hope it isn’t nearly as long. You’ll be able to find the full talk onBAFTA’s YouTube Channelin the coming weeks.
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