Karlach is one of the best companions in Baldur's Gate 3. Her person?al storyline is one of the most interesting, and her prowess in battle makes her essential to have al?ong for the ride.

As a Barbarian, Karlach only has access to three feats in Baldur's Gate 3, compared to other classes like Rogue and Fighter, which get four. This means that you've got to pic??k your Karlach?? feats carefully when you unlock them at Levels 4, 8, and 12.

So, which ones should you take? To help you decide, let's look at the best feats for Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3 to make the strongest build possible.

Best feats for Barbarian Karlach in BG3

There are 41 feats to choose from in Baldur's Gate 3, so narr??owing it down to just three is tough. We've picked out what we think are the best feats for Karlach, as well as a few honorable mentions that you can't completely rule out.

With any Barbarian build in BG3, the aim should be purely?? about dealing as much damage as possible while being able to take a hit or two. You'll be right in the middle of the action, so this is crucial. These feats will help you achieve that.

Great Weapon Master feat for Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3

The Great Weapon Master feat is absolutely essential for any party featuring Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3. With this, you can take an extra attack each turn using your bonus action. Your attacks are going to be deadly as a Barbarian anyway,? so getting to take two will result in enormous damage, especially if you're using a Heavy melee weapon you're proficient in.

We'd recommend taking Great Weapon Master as early as possible, ideally making it your Level 4 feat. Doing this kind of damage so early in the game will make combat encounter??s a breeze with Karlach in your party.

Savage Attacker feat for Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3

It should be pretty obvious why you should pick the Savage Attacker feat as Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3. She's capable of dealing enormous amounts of damage, so getting to roll the dice twice and use th??e highest result is comically overpowered.

Grab Savage Attacker at Level 8, after taking Great Weapon Master. That way, you'll always get the +10 damage buff too - a potent combination that will ensure Karlach plays an important role in your party throughout Baldur's Gate 3.

Tough feat for Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3

BG3's Karlach can already take tons of damage compared to the other companions. The Tough feat takes that up a notch by giving her plenty more HP. When combined with the pre??vious two feats, you create a resilient melee monster by taking the Tough feat.

You should take the Tough feat for Karl??ach last, once you reach Level 12. As you hurtle toward the end of the game, the extra health will make Karlach extremely tough to kill. If you're really struggling earlier in the game, don't be afraid to take the Tough feat earlier, though.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Karlach feats: honorable mentions

While we can heartily recommend taking the above feats for Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3, there are plenty of ways to build this Tiefling Barbarian. We've added five more honorable mentions for the best feats for Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3 that you can use to switch up your playstyle.

If you find you've made the wrong choice with your feats, you can always respec Karlach by paying 100 gold to Withers at camp. You're not loc??ked into one specific build, so why not try out a few different feat selections throughout your playthrough?

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Astarion is one of the most popular companions in Baldur's Gate 3. You'll likely meet him early in ?your adventure, a Rogue whose?? tongue is as fast as his sword. One thing's for sure: you want to keep Astarion around.

As a Rogue, Astarion has one distinct advantage over other Baldur's Gate 3 characters. Whether you're playing as him or bringing him along as a companion, Astarion can choose up to four feats as he levels up, as opposed to other?s' three. These come at Levels 4, 8, 10, and 12 for Rogues.

But which ones should you be taking for your playthrough? We're going to take a look at the best feats for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3, to make sure you get your build just right.

Best feats for Rogue Astarion in BG3

When looking at the best feats for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3, we'll highlight the four we think you should be taking throughout your playthrough. There are so many BG3 feats that these four aren't the only ones you can take, so we'll also include some honorable mentions that also work pretty well for an ?Astarion run.

The priority with these feats is to create a ranged Astarion BG3 build. In the late game, this can result in some pre?tty crazy damage with the right feats in place.

Ability Improvement feat for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3

With four feats to choose from, you should always be taking Ability Improvement. Usually, for a Rogue, you'd dump the extra two points here into Dexterity, allowing you t??o take advantage of Stealth skills and gi??ving you a bonus for abilities such as Sleight of Hand.

We'd recommend taking Ability Improvement for your Level 4 feat in Baldur's Gate 3. Astarion will reap the benefits if you take this one as early as you possib??ly can.

Sharpshooter feat for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3

Any Astarion build in BG3 isn't complete without taking the Sharpshooter feat. It makes him an absolute menace from range, and the removal of penalties from low ground is just overpowered. Make no mistake - if you choose Sharpshooter as one of your feats for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3, you should switch primarily to ranged attacks.

You sho?uld take Sharpshooter as your Level 8 feat for Astarion. The -5 penalty to Attack Roles can be negated by high Dexterity if you took Ability Improvement earlier, and the extra 10 damage is an enormous buff in exchange.

Dual Wielder feat for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3

When you're really starting to hone your Astarion build in Baldur's Gate 3, we'd definitely recommend Dual Wielder. This feat will allow you to dual-wield crossbows, which, when combined with your previous two feats, makes Astarion a damage-dealing machine. The +1 bonus to Armour Class isn't too shabby, ei?ther.

Dual Wielder is a Baldur's Gate 3 feat you should take for Astarion at Level 10. The previous two are so beneficial at an early stage, that you'll see more rewards from taking them first. Dual Wielder is great, but it's quite a s??pecialist feat.

Mobile feat for Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3

The Mobile feat is one of the best for players who enjoy the stealthy aspects of a Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion playthrou??gh. It's commonly used alongside Dash to avoid Opportunity Attacks as you maneuver around the battlefield, then Cunning Action: Hide to go into Stealth mode.

When using Mobile as pa?rt of that combination, Astarion can pop in and out of stealth during combat, dealing massive damage before slipping away into the night. Even for ranged characters, Mobile is great for simply repositioning quickly without taking tons of damage. Grab this feat at Level 12 - it shouldn't be an early priority, but it's worth having.

Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion feats: honorable mentions

The four feats above aren't the only viable ones for an Astarion playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3. Here are so?me honorable mentions you can use, even if you're not embracing the range-heavy build we recommended?? above.

It's also worth noting that you can always experiment with your Astarion feats in Baldur's Gate 3. If you think you've made the wrong choice for your playthrough, you can respec your class via Withers and choose your feats all over again. This will set you back 100 gold each time, which isn't much at all when you get into the latter stages of Baldur's Gate 3.

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Even if recent history might fool you into disagreeing, BioWare is one of the greatest RPG-makers in the video game scene. For a very long time, nobody did better than BioWare, and only time will tell whether the company is?? currently in the process of regaining i??ts mojo.

Let's look at the studio's best games, best attempts, and biggest missed opportunities, and find out where the recently-released Dragon Age: The Veilguard lands in the midst of it all, shall we?

17. Mass Effect: Andromeda

We all know this couldn't be anywhere else. While I don't doubt Andromeda looked good on paper, at some point, at least, the end result felt no better than an actual paper cut. Bland plot, unmemorable characters, somet??imes?? downright terrible writing, and that's when you weren't prevented from experiencing those things by some wacky game-breaking bug.

Executive meddling made Andromeda the poster boy of mismanagement in games.

If there's one thing Andromeda really had going for it, it was the looks. Andromeda reall??y did produce alien vistas capable of absolutely taking your breath away �so long as your character didn't clip through the ground and fall into an endless void.

16. Mass Effect 3

I'm going to start off by saying something nice as to?? avoid too harsh of a?? reaction from fans: Mass Effect 3 has great gameplay and ran fantastically well even on my old Xbox 360.

With that out of the way, I was always bummed at how people complained so much about the ending of Mass Effect 3 - because they should've complained about t?he whole game. Sure, the gameplay was good, but we're talking about BioWare, a company known for proving games can be so much more than cool pew-pew action??.

The plot is just rubbish, likely courtesy of having one of the co-main writers leaving as a response to the studio becoming "too corporate" to fulfill the original vision. The dialogue, the missions, and the entire culmination of the fantastic setup done by the stellar two previous games in the series all went out of the window for inexplicable reasons. You'll never play the game Mass Effect 3 as it should have been, but you might always learn what it could've played out like.

15. Anthem

After the massive failure of Andromeda, Anthem's reveal re-ignited the hopes of a comeback for BioWare. The studio had previously wowed everyone with Mass Effect, so they could totally come up with yet another incredible Sci-Fi IP. The first previews got everyone hyped as Anthem looked gorgeous, but it was all downhill from there. Anthem turned out to be very repetitive, not all that much fun, and surprisingly empty and light on story �a deadly sin when it comes?? to a BioWare game.

Anthem wasn't as bad as Andromeda, and it wasn't as? much of a let down because it was the first game in its series, but we all wanted it to be so much more than it turned out to be.

14. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Yes, feel free to confirm for yourself, BioWare did make a Sonic game for the Nintendo DS. It's an RPG, a type of game where you naturally can't make great use of Sonic's ability to go fast. That, by itself, feels like a hindrance, but I know damn well the good people at BioWare had the capacity to come up with alternative mechanics to make this work, but Sonic Chronicles is no more than a bland RPG wearing the face of a popular cha??r?acter.

The most memorable aspect of Sonic Chronicles is Central City, the incredibly awful so?ng you can hurt yourself with above.

13. Dragon Age 2

The most divisive title in the Dragon Age series, or at least the one most deserving of that distinction. After the massive commercial and critical success of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 disappointed players by introducing repetitive combat, removing customization options, reusing the same areas again and again, and limiting the scope of the adventure to a very small patch of land. Everything about Dragon Age 2 felt inexplicably rushed.

Dragon Age 2 isn't terrible, but it's one of the most disappointing sequels?? in relatively recent history.

12. Shattered Steel

Few are aware of it, but BioWare began life with a badass mech game. Shattered Steel's action-oriented robot gameplay is the opposite of what you'd expect from a company famous for its talkative and lore-heavy RPGs, but Shattered Steel wasn't bad at all.

Unfortunately, Shattered Steel didn't age all that well, and, without an HD remaster in sight, it's hard to recommend right now. Still, Shattered Steel remains a very curious artifact.

11. Star Wars: The Old Republic

You ought to commend BioWare for challenging World Of Warcraft during the later years of its prime, but The Old Republic proved little more than a courageous attempt.

While it didn't feature any terrible glitches �besides the dance emote that made you invincible, of course �the gameplay amounted to a grindier version of Knights Of The Old Republic. The story didn't fare much better, ?as it went down? such an uninspired route that the game at some point opted for a soft lore reboot �that also didn't result in anything particularly memorable.

10. MDK2

Though the MDK series (short for Murder Death Kill, some sa??y) didn't begin its life via the hands of BioWare, they certainly improved it.

Shiny's peculiar and very original '90s shooter got even better on the PS2, and felt even more complete with the addition of a few more equally-quirk??y characters to our team. This series has been dead for too long, so maybe it's time BioWare picks it back up for a well-deserved refresher.

9. Dragon Age Inquisition

If you ignore the massive tone-deafness of naming the hero's job after one of the vilest institutions in the history of humankind, Inquisition is a pretty good game.

Inquisition fixed the most annoying and disappointing elements of Dragon Age 2's maps, and provided a great early showcase for the power of the 8th generation of consoles. Inquisition was a step in the right direction for the series, and it's also responsible for one of the most hilarious ripoff-related blunders in Hollywood's recent history

8. Dragon Age: The Veilguard

A lot has been said about Dragon Age:The Veilguard, and I'm pretty?? sure a lot is still to be said. It's one of those games to get caught in the vortex of the grifter sphere, meaning that all matter of relevant criticism will likely be drowned in a sea of complaints about vapid crap that YouTubers have carefully engineered to generate outrage-fueled clips.

The truth about Veilguard is that it plays great, features awesome new combat mechanics, and a cool new cast of characters. I definitely don't like t??he weird mid-series shift into a more cutesy art style, but, even then, I must admit that it doesn't look all that bad. The only thing that really bummed me about?? this one is the dialogue, which as a whole, is among the most uninspired in the history of BioWare games. Then again, it's going up against some of the all-time greats, so there's that.

7. Jade Empire

BioWare's attempt at a mor??e action-y RPG was a huge success. The seldom-explored Chinese Mythology setting, the gameplay, and the engaging tale of revenge make this one of BioWare's best games to date.

Sadly, Jade Empire gets overlooked among BioWare's greats, likely because it spent too long as an original Xbox exclusive. That time is past, though, so you have no excuse not to give it a shot, especially if you're into Dragon Age: The Veilguard's modernized combat style.

6. Baldur’s Gate and Baldur's Gate 2

Many of the people comparing The Veilguard negatively to Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 might be unaware that Baldur's Gate on?ly even exists because BioWare ??brought it to life.

Yes, both Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2 were BioWare titles, and also the games that put the studio on the map. If you're into Baldur's Gate 3, you'll still find a lot to love about BioWare's first big classic. Some of its gameplay elements are dated, sure, though not any more dated than a nice D&D session, and you can totally get the more modernized Enhanced Editions of both BG1 and BG2, so consider giving it a shot!

5. Neverwinter Nights

For the longest time, BioWare? made great use of the D&D gameplay mechanics to create fantastic video game experiences. Still, most of BioWare's best games don't take place in the actual D&D setting.

If you're looking for a game in the style of Baldur's Gate, a game filled with the modernity seen in later titles like Knights Of The Old Republic, but still in the D&D setting, then you should absolutely give the original Neverwinter Nights a try, as it's the game you can easily blame for un??leashing BioWare's golden age.

4. Dragon Age: Origins

Though it's titled as if it were the tired prequel a studio would make after the main plot of a once-successful series goes too far off the rails, Dragon Age: Origins remains the best and the most endearing Dragon Age game to date.

You'd think that just making Knights Of The Old Republic in a medieval setting with dragons wouldn't be enough to make one of the most beloved games of all ti?me, but you'd be wrong. That's because solid gameplay, good art direction, and interesting char?acters are more than enough to create something special when you already have a great foundation.

3. Mass Effect 2

The first Mass Effect sequel brought in a more interesting cast and did a great job of telling a more emotional tale via some of, if not the best, writing in BioWare history. It also came out in a very playable state, which is only true for 50% of the games with Mass Effect in their title.

Mass Effect 2 proved a step up over its predecessor in all the ways you'd expect out of a BioWare sequel. Still, in a possibly unpopu??lar opinion, I believe it failed to reach the heights of the original by featuring a less epic plot. I believe it also suffers from having gone with a more streamlined mission-based structure that hurts the immersion and the feeling of freedom we got from the original. Still, these should be seen as no more than nitpicks aimed at an all-time classic.

2. Knights Of The Old Republic

You'd be hard-pressed to find three games based on a popular movie IP that don't suck, let alone three spectacular ones. KOTOR counts as those three, as it perfectly merges BioWare's excellent D&D combat with one of the best cast of characters and plot ever seen in the Star Wars universe.

If you've grown tired of Star Wars and of modern Star Wars discourse, then you should probably kick back and give Knights of The Old Republic a shot. It's over 20 years old now, but, true to the original trilogy, remains as engrossing as eve?r.

1. Mass Effect

Ok, this one comes with a very important disclaimer. I do not, in any way, believe the original Xbox 360 exclusive version of Mass Effect to be BioWare's greatest game. I loved all the promise on display, but the original Mass Effect was a very rough diamond due to its interminable?? load times and poor performance issues. The honor of being BioWare's best title belongs to the much improved-upon version that came out on PC.

Mass Effect, though heavily inspired by other great works of Sci-Fi, never failed to feel like its own thing. It also features the quality characters, plot, and writing you'd expect from a BioWare endeavor. And, after finally being optimized, felt fantastic to play, courtesy of all the new and inspired gameplay mechanics worthy of a groundbreaking work of Science Fiction. Mass Effect isn't just an RPG, a shooter, a spicy alien dating sim, or even a fun driving and exploration game. It's an experience way cooler ??than actual space exploration can ever hope to be.

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Baldur's Gate 3 is a game that lives and dies by its companions. The characters in?? Larian'?s RPG are arguably its biggest strength, but they can be even better.

This collection of the 10 best Baldur's Gate 3 companion mods alters both the look and behaviors of the game's followers. Thes??e are the must-haves, the cream of the crop.

More Reactive Companions

More Reactive Companions is a Baldur's Gate 3 mod that makes the game truly feel like a gr?oup adventure. It doesn't even add any new content, instead repurposing many of the throwaway dialogue lines used by the characters when playing as them.

These lines will b?e used as "companion chatter" when using this mod. Each one has been hand-picked for every scenario by mod author LightningLarryL, giving it a real feeling of authenticity. It makes a massive difference to make your party feel more alive than ever.

Full Custom Companions (Hirelings)

Full Custom Companions (Hirelings) expands the hireling system in a huge way. Instead of being constrained to the same old hirelings offered by Withers, this allows you to customize your own. You can even use Baldur's Gate 3 race mods to create extra unique hirelings.

That's not all this mod does, though. It also allows you to duplicate regular NPCs and use them as companions. These custom hirelings can also use tadpoles to gain illithid powers, making them feel much more like a regular BG3 companion.

Summon Guenhwyvar - Drizzt Legendary Panther Companion

If you're a Dungeons & Dragons lore fanatic, Summon Guenhwyvar - Drizzt Legendary Panther Comp??anion should be right up your alley. The panther Guenhwyvar is a popular figure in the Forgotten Realms lore, and?? with this mod, you can ??summon her to fight by your side.

Upon installation, you'll be given a figurine of Guenhwyvar. This can only be used to summon her once per Long Rest, so it's not entirely overpowered. Overall, it's a solid, lore-friendly addition to Baldur's Gate 3.

Adjustable Party Limit

Oh, you want a party? Adjustable Party Limit can give you a party. As the name suggests, it allow??s you to change the number of companions allowed in your party ?at a time, selecting from anywhere between 1 and 16.

There are a few similar mods that do this, so why's this one the best? According to?? mod author PixellBytes, it's the only one that has "built-in ways to prevent you from encountering some of the most infamous party limit extender bugs, such as the Act 1 lake boat bug and the long resting bug." So, there.

JWL Scratch is Back

We all love Scratch; he's the best boy. But he isn't the most useful boy in combat scenarios. You can fix this with JWL Scratch is Back, which adds 11 elemental-themed variants of Baldur's Gate 3's cutest pup.

This is done in a lore-friendly way, giving you 11 enchanted collars to collect throughout the game, each of which offers a different buff to BG3's canine companion. Recommended if you want to bring Sc??ratch along for the adventure.

Fireproof Karlach

If you think about it, even on a surface level, it doesn't make sense that Karlach takes fire damage in Baldur's Gate 3. She burns so hot that you can't even touch her!

Obviously, resistance doesn't always equal immunity, but I reckon Fireproof Karlach makes more sense to have than not. It simply gives her the Hellish Resistance trait, nullif?ying all fire damage.

Really Shadowheart

Really Shadowheart might be one of the most considered Baldur's Gate 3 ?mods out the??re. It completely alters her character in Act 3 to be more consistent with Acts 1 and 2. But what does that actually mean?

For starters, romanced Shadowheart no lo?nger tolerates cheating. No more casual fun with Halsin or the Drow Twins for you! It's much more in line with the Shadowheart we meet earlier in the game, but that's only the tip of the iceberg for everything this mod does. She'll try to save her parents no matter what, she'll take a lot more persuasion to kill Viconia, and you can even propose to her if you do choose to save her parents. That's right: you can be married to Shadowheart in the epilogue with this mod. 10/10, no notes.

Karlach Overhaul WIP

Nexus Mods user vyrelis has seriously cooked with Karlach Overhaul WIP. It's by far and away the best overhaul of the tiefling companion's face, making it look a ?little softer than the base game.

It also gives her a cool new hai?rstyle that, in my opinion, trumps the vanilla one. Overhauling the appearance of a fan-favorite character will always be controversial ?to some players, but this one's pretty tasteful.

A Visit with Volo - Astarion Reimagined

Now, for something a little more dramatic. A Visit with Volo - Astarion Reimagined de-age?s Neil Newbon's popular vampire a good 20 ??years, giving him a look closer aligned to something you might see on a runway or the front of a magazine.

This pretty-boy-Astarion aesthetic won't be for everyone, and understandably so. But for those who do like it, it could prove to be one of the best Baldur's Gate 3 companion mods out there.

Lae'zel - Alternate Faces

Of all the Lae'zel overhauls on Nexus Mods, I reckon Lae'zel - Alternate Faces takes the crown. This one offers numerous face options, each based on a different Baldur's Gate 3 race.

The differences from the base game version of Lae'zel are pretty small, so you won'??t b??e left feeling like she's a totally new character with this mod.

The post 10 best Baldur’s Gate 3 companion mods appeared first on Destructoid.

Throughout Baldur's Gate 3, choosing your character's race is one of the most important decisions you'll make. I?t affects tons of dialogue throughout the game, and changes how some characters treat your ??Tav.

As with every aspect of the game, Baldur's Gate 3 has tons of mods adding new races. Some are based on D&D lore, while others are homebrewed by fans. If you're starting a fresh Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough, why not consider one of these race mod?s?

Flutter and Whimsy (Fairy Race)

Flutter and Whimsy (Fairy Race) might be the most polished mod on this list. You can play Baldur's Gate 3 as? a Fairy??, complete with customizable wings. Fairies have their own custom cantrips and spells, including Tinify, which shrinks you down to size.

If you use other Baldur's Gate 3 customization mods, Flutter and Whimsy (Fairy Race) has you covered, including compat??ibility patches for many of the most popular downloads on the Nexus.

Half Angel (Aasimar 5E)

Half Angel (Aasimar 5E) takes inspiration from the 2016 Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook, Volo's Guide to Monsters, to bring the Aasimar race to Baldur's Gate 3. This winged race features three unique subraces fit for various playthroughs, each wit??h extensive lore.

If you enjoy sitting in Baldur's Gate 3's character creator for hours, deliberating over every detail, you'll get lo??ts out of Half Angel (Aasimar 5E). Creator DarthRen has added 25 halos and horns, as well as 10 wings and tails. That's not to mention the unique hairstyles and heads!

Ghastly Ghouls - Playable Undead Race

If there's one thing Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, has over Baldur's Gate 3, it's the ability to play as the undead. No longer. Ghastly Ghouls - Playable Undead Race solves this with four subraces: Lich, Ghoul, Wight, and Mummy. Each has custom heads and ??bodies, meaning you can tinker with your Undead's appearance to your heart's content.

This mod makes my immersion-obsessed heart happy. It uses the vanilla "Undead" tag for your Tav, affecting ho??w various spells affect you. You'll be immune to some, while others, such as "Turn Undead," make you more vulnerable.

The Dunmer - Playable Dark Elf Race

Adding a race from The Elder Scrolls isn't exactly lore-friendly, but The Dunmer - Playable Dark Elf Race was simply too extensive to leave out of this list. I mean, let's take a look at what this Baldur's Gate 3 race mod includes.

Six subraces, "themed after the Great Houses, House Dagoth, and the Ashlanders." Seven new spells, all of which have custom visual effects. 11 unique heads, 50 skin tones, and 19 hand-drawn tattoos. And there are custom piercings based on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. A must-have mod, really.

Half-Dragon

Half-Dragon is based on an original homebrew TTRPG system by author johauna's husband. Four races are added, and numerou??s subclasses are meticulously?? designed to create a fun gameplay experience.

The highlight here is the ability to take the form of a Dragon. It's cool every single time and is reason enough to try this Baldur's Gate 3 mod. It fe??els like it should've been part of the base game all along.

Spirited Seasons - Playable Fey Eladrin

There's a lot to love about Spirited Seasons - Playable Fey Eladrin, especially to enjoy creating stunning Tavs that look great in a screenshot. This ?adds the Eladrin race, with four subraces based on each season, extensive customization options, and unique ?spells to match.

The only drawback is that you can't change seasons throughout your playthrough, as the Eladrin can in Dungeons & Dragons. This is due to the technical limitation of changing subraces mid-playthrough. Don't let that put you off - this is one of the most polished Baldur's Gate 3 race mods out there.

Whispers of the Fey - Goblins Race

Goblins exist in Baldur's Gate 3, so why can't we play as them? Whispers of the Fey - Goblins Race solves this issue, adding two new subra?ces: Greenskin Goblin and Dankwood Goblin. You can customize your Goblin as you would a regular Tav. There's even a custom Hireling named Ol' Shiny to bring along on your advent?ures.

If that hasn't convinced you, playing as a Goblin gives you access to a baby squirrel companion that will ac?company you throughout Faerûn. I, for one, am sold.

Playable Myconid Race

Remember the Myconids? Those fungus folk that you meet in Baldur's Gate 3's Underdark? You probably never considered the fact that you couldn't play as one, but with Playable Myconid Race, now you can. Who asked for this? Who cares!

Understandably, customization is limited with this race mod, so you're restricted to picking from the models already available in Baldur's Gate 3. Creator porridge77 admits it's a little janky, but for the novel?ty factor alone, this is hard to beat and is well worth a slot in your load order.

Hearts of the Forest - Playable Dryad Race

Much like the previous mod, Hearts of the Forest - Playable Dryad Race takes a race already in the game and makes it playable. Considering their humanoid form, it's a little surprising t?hey're not playable in the vanilla game, but regardless, this mod solves this.

Creator Em??eraldTechno has gone the extra mile, creating new male Dryad??s. This isn't lore-friendly, but the end result looks great, so they get a pass here.

Wine and Revelry (Satyr Race)

Using Wine and Revelry (Satyr Race) is a way to guarantee a unique Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough. The main highlight here are the digitigrade legs, which obviously ar??en't possible in the vanilla game.

Creator labotor has added many customization options to flesh out Wine and Revelry (Satyr Race), including various tails, horns, and ea?r options to give you total flexibility with your Satyr Tav.

The post 10 best Baldur’s Gate 3 race mods appeared first on Destructoid.

It has been over a year now since the launch of Baldur's Gate 3, and its modding community is starting to come into its own. No aspect of the game remains untouched as talented modders aim to perfect ?Larian's legendary CRPG with additio??ns of their own.

This includes the weapons. Sure, Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of weapon variation throughout the game, but there can always be more. Use these 10 BG3 weapon mods to really spice? up your adventure through Faerûn.

Elven Weaponry - Longbows and Quivers

Elven Weaponry - Longbows and Quivers is the first in a long line of mods on this list by creator kharneth, and there's a reason for that. This mod takes the base game's lackluster longbows and transforms them, adding new ones with edited and custom models of their own. According to kharneth, the objective of this mod is to put longbows on par with crossbows in Baldur's Gate 3, and it certainly achieves that.

Drow Weaponry - Rapiers

With Drow Weapon - Rapiers, kharneth has added a ton of new rapiers into Baldur's Gate 3. They've tried to make it as lore-friendly as possible, placing them only in areas where Drows are located. All these weapons take an offense-first approach, meaning you'll often sacrifice safety for damage. However, the rapi?ers found in this mod are caster-friendly, which, according to kharneth, "makes them good weapons for m?ixed martial-caster classes."

Half-Orc Weaponry - Clan Weapons

Half-Orc Weaponry - Clan Weapons is another kharneth banger. This mod is all about adding custom new Half-Orc weapons to the game, from Uncommon rarity all the way to Legendary. Much like the rest of kharneth's mods, these have been carefully placed throughout the game, to make them feel like they're a part of the vanilla Baldur's Gate 3 experience.

Dwarven Weaponry - Hammers

Dwarven Weaponry - Hammers. Everything you need to know is in the name, really. A bunch of new warhammers and handhammers are included in this mod, with options for all rarities. Like all kharneth mods, you'll only find these new hammers?? in immersive locations, so they're not just carelessly placed around the world.

Dwarven Weaponry - Drakefire Flintlock

Over the next few years, I've no doubt that several games will be marketed as "Baldur's Gate 3 with guns" to win fans over. But what if Baldur's Gate 3 did have guns? Dwarven Weaponry - Drakefire Flintlock answers that question by adding a pint-sized flintlock pistol to the game, complete with a custom model and textures. You can dual-wield them, too, allowing you to go full Lara Croft-akimbo mode across Faerûn. It's the kind of thing that makes you fall in love with modding again.

Underwood's Weapon Pack

Compared to what we've seen so far, Underwood's Weapon Pack is a little more low-key. It adds 24 new weapons and a shield around the world, and it even lets you dual-wield axes and hammers. The weapons themselves fit in perfectly with Baldur's Gate 3's aesthetic, and you may find y??ourself using items from Underwood's Weapon Pack without even realizing it.

UnholyBerserk

This one's for the BG3 Berserkers out there. UnholyBerserk adds a new greataxe titled Nor to the game, which is made to complement a Berserker playthrough. Found in Act One's Blighted Village, Nor can be upgraded by players using Soul Coins and Memory Shards, dealing big AOE damage to everyone (yes, even your companions). It's a little overpowered, but it features one of the most awesome ??custom models I've ever seen, and it couldn't miss out on this list.

Dark Urge Demonic Blood Swords

When a mod is called Dark Urge Demonic Blood Swords, you already know you're in for one of the coolest things you've ever seen. And that it is. This mod doesn't overcomplicate things, adding an awesome set of dual-wieldable swords and a demonic shield to the game. The visuals alone make this one of the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods and worth a spot in your load order.

Elven Weaponry - Blades

Elven Weaponry - Blades is the last kharneth mod on this list, I promise. They're just too good at what they do. The creator claims it was born from scimitars feeling "lackluster as main weapon for combat characters," adding a few new custom models and modifying the game's existing scimitars to make them more viable for a complete playthrough. Here, kharneth has done a great job creating unique-looking weapons that won't feel overpowered as you hack and slash your way through Baldur's Gate 3's story.

Lightsabers - Star Wars Mod

Did you really think I would make a list of the best Baldur's Gate 3 weapon mods and not include Lightsabers - Star Wars Mod? There's no way. In any game that extensively features melee combat, a lightsaber mod usually follows, and Baldur's Gate 3 is no exception. Choose your lightsaber color, and giv?e the world of Faerûn a taste of a galaxy far, far away.

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If you're like me, Baldur's Gate 3 has made you fall in love with modding again. Larian's epic CRPG ?is a world filled with possibili??ties, expanded even further by a dedicated modding community looking to improve every aspect of the game.

Customization is one of Baldur's Gate 3's biggest strengths, and that only gets even better when envoking a lit??tle fanmade magic in the Char?acter Creator. There's no aspect of your Tav you can't change, and by using this pick of 10 awesome customization mods, you'll have more choices than ever.

Tav's Hair Salon

If there's one thing to be said about Baldur's Gate 3, it's that the hair options are slightly limited. Not to worry - Tav's Hair Salon is precisely what you need to fix this. Adding plenty of new hair options for Elf, Half-Elf, Drow, Human, and Tiefling characters, Tav's Hair Salon should be sufficient for roleplaying any type of character in Baldur's Gate 3, with plenty of different styles represented. In my experience, this is the single most impactful customization mod for Baldur's Gate 3 for the average player.

Horns of Faerun

Let's face it: horns are cool. And yes, Baldur's Gate 3 has horns, but why not more? Horns of Faerun does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing you to add various new horns during character creation. The only restriction here is that Dragonborn characters can't use these options, which is a shame but is understandable. It doesn't repl??ace any vanilla horn options either, so you can still pick those if you want. But when Horns of Faerun's options look so great, why would you?

Faces of Faerun

If there's one recurring theme throughout this list, it's options. More options are always a good thing, and Faces of Faerun delivers in this regard. Aloija's mod adds lots of new heads for character creation and, crucially, doesn't replace any vanilla options. There are some stunning choices here, almost all of which are a marked improvement over what the base Baldur's Gate 3 has to offer. With this mod, your Tav's face card will never decline.

Astralities' Skintone Expansion - Natural Tones

Astralities' Skintone Expansion - Natural Tones is a simple mod that probably should have been a part of the vanilla game. It adds a wider variety of skin tones to Baldur's Gate 3, expanding on the color families included in the base game as well as adding a few se?parate o??ptions, too.

Mari's Tattoo

One of the most interesting ways to spice up any Baldur's Gate 3 character is to add tattoos. If the base game offerings were a little bland for your taste, then Mari's Tattoo should have what you're after. T??his mod replaces the base game's tattoos with a few more exciting choices. What more is there to say? Ink up.

Eyes of the Beholder

If you thought the eye options in Baldur's Gate 3 were lacking, then Eyes of the Beholder is the customization mod for you. This mod allows you to replace your Tav's eyes with something a little more exciting, replacing the base game textures to allow for more extensive options. As said, this is a full replacer, so you don't get to switch out these options while using the in-ga??me character creator. You'll have to install an entirely new preset to do that, but we think it's well worth the time.

Flutter and Whimsy (Fairy Race)

Forget customization mods for just a second. Flutter and Whimsy (Fairy Race) is one of the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods, full stop. It gives you the opportunity to play as a fairy, complete with custom-made animated wings of various shapes and sizes. Mod author labotor has considered everything here, with custom traits and spells based on the Monsters of the Multiverse sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons. Flutter and Whimsy (Fairy Race) feels like a natural evolution of the vanilla game, and you??'ll wonder how you ever created a new char??acter without it.

Wine and Revelry (Satyr Race)

Just like the previous mod, Wine and Revelry (Satyr Race) comes from modder labotor. With inspiration from the Mythic Odysseys of Theros sourcebook, it adds the ability to play as a satyr, including custom options for tails and goat ears. Of course, the goat legs are the most unique thing about this mod, although it does cause a few animation issues at the moment. Still, we think that Wine and Revelry ??(Satyr Race) is great for immersion, and if occasional janky ?animations are the price to pay, then I'd say it's worth it.

P4 Dragonborn Scale Colours

The Dragonborn race in Baldur's Gate 3 is probably the game's most unique race, and as the default choice for a Dark Urge playthrough, it is extremely popular among players. P4 Dragonborn Scale Colours improves the customization options for the race massively, giving you 190 new co?lors to play with during character creation. Sure, the number of choices in the base game is fine, but this is a whole new world, and you won't be able to return. Y?ou'll certainly never be lost for choice with this mod in your load order.

Vessnelle's Hair Collection

I'm ending this list where I began it: with another hair set. Vessnelle's Hair Collection is simply too good to miss out, offering tons of stunning new hairstyles for you to use throughout your playthrough. If you're someone who already spends hours in Baldur's Gate 3's character creator, th?en cycling through the options in Vessnelle's Hair Collection is sure to add a considerable amount of time to your experience.

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Just over a year after its release, the Baldur's Gate 3 modding community has already established itself as one of the most dedicated in the gaming space. Since launc??h, fans of Larian's critically acclaimed CRPG have expanded on the game in various exciting ways, which, of course, means you can face the Mind Flayers ahead looking on point.

In a title where player customization is important, many of the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods have added to the game's armor and clothing? options. If you could only choose 10 from the plethora of options available, these are the ones you should go for.

Basket Full of Equipment

Basket Full of Equipment is the most extensive armor and clothing mod on this list. It adds over 800 pieces of new equipment to Baldur's Gate 3, some of which is brand-new, while other b??its are in the game but inaccessible to the player. Orin's outfit? You got? it. Gortash's robe? Sure, go ahead. You should use Basket Full of Equipment as a base mod to complement the rest of your load order.

Cloaks of Faerun

Baldur's Gate 3 has a few cloaks to choose from, but more options never hurt anyone. Cloaks of Faerun adds a total of 33 new cloaks into the game, from Common all the way to Legendary. Mod author Araelynn has placed them carefully throughout the game, to help make them feel like a vanilla part of the vanilla Baldur's Gate 3 experience.

Faerun Colors (Dye and color sets)

Faerun Colors (Dye and color sets) is, no exaggeration, one of the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods ever. Mod author techroot has added over 80 new stunning dye colors to the game, each "based on deities and famous entities from Faerûn." It's lore-accurate, it adds more armor and clothing customization options, and it expands the roleplaying possibilities for players who love to embrace that side of Baldur's Gate 3. What's not to love?

Modular Equipment

Modular Equipment is a mod that only a few players can use, as it's only compatible?? with "tall slim femme characters," according to?? mod author wesslen. If that fits the description of your Tav, then it's a must-download, adding various armor and clothing pieces designed to be interchanged with one another. These pieces are cleverly made to complement many vanilla items, so you can even use individual items to enhance an outfit comprised mostly of base game clothing and armor pieces, too. There's even dye support, which works well (for the most part - some items don't necessarily look like they're supposed to).

Druu's Clothes and Armours

Druu's Clothes and Armours adds a couple of new ou??tfits for your Tav. It's not a massive selection like something like Basket Full of Equipment, but I loved these outfit options so much that I had to include them. They've got physics support, and even ??????????????????????????allow you to use custom dyes from mods like Faerun Colors (Dye and color sets). Not every player will find a use for Druu's Clothes and Armours, but I'm confident these outfits are perfect for plenty of playthroughs.

Dye Support For Shields

It doesn't make much sense that you can't dye shields in Baldur's Gate 3. Well, with Dye Support For Shields, now you can. There's not much to say about this one - all the base-game shields can now be dyed, a cool quality-of-life change that s??hould have been in the vanilla game.

Helms of Faerun

Helms of Faerun is the kind of Baldur's Gate 3 mod that'll make y?ou fall in love with modding again. Frankly, it's utterly bizarre, but unapologetically so, with 12 new helmets added to the game to choose from. While some options look awesome, others, such as the Thrall Helmets, will make your Tav lo?ok a little odd, to say the least. Ever wanted to look like you're wearing an intellect devourer? Then this is right up your alley.

Bladesong Garment

I've tried to avoid adding individual armor and clothing sets to this list, but Bladesong Garment is simply too good to miss out. This set of clothing is intende??d to complement a College of Swords bard roleplay, although a creative player could have other uses for each piece, too. Once installed, you can purchase the Bladesong Garment set from Arron in the Emerald Grove during Act One, or you can pick it up from the tutorial chest on the Nautiloid if you want it right from the start.

Aether's Black Dye - Item Shipment Framework

Aether's Black Dye - Item Shipment Framework is a mod that is somewhat surprisingly not in the base game. It's not exactly complex - it just adds a black dye to Baldur's Gate 3, so you can embrace darknes??s no matter your ?outfit. This black dye has infinite uses, too, so you can turn your group into a party of goth adventurers if you so desire.

Faerunian Carnival

Last but not least, there's Faerunian Carnival. This mod adds a collection of carnival masks to the game, allowing you to look anything from mysterious to ridiculous as you adventure across Faerûn. There?? are plenty of interesting designs here, and I have no doubt someone more creative than me could produce some fascinating roleplay ideas for a playthrough using Faerunian Carnival. Some of these masks are exclusive to either male or female characters, so bear this in?? mind when creating your Tav.

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It seems like fate that Larian Studios, the minds behind the sword-and-sorcery Divinity: Original Sin franchise, found its way into Baldur's Gate, but it could have easily been a completely different fan-favorite franchise: Fallout.

Speaking with Edge Magazine, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke revealed that Baldur's Gate III was one of only a handful of titles it considered at the time. However, it also considered making pitches for a new Ultima or Fallout.

Ultimately, Larian went with Baldur's Gate III, as the franchise was languishing following the closure of Black Isle Studios. Svicke tells Edge it was a franchise he knew would get plenty of traction, saying Baldur's Gate was "one of those IPs that you know?? a lot of people will want to work on."

Still, it is bittersweet to imagine a world where Larian could apply that same love and care Baldur's Gate got to a new Fallout. As I write this, I am on the cusp of finishing Baldur's Gate III (finally!), and I am losing my mind thinking about how great this world-building would be for a Fallout game. Baldur's Gate nailed exploration, world-building, and party dynamics in a way that fans have been begging Fallout to for years.

Tapping the people who made the biggest RPG in the world to create a new Fallout seems like a no-brainer. The franchise is bigger than ever thanks to the success of the Prime Video series, and it sure sounds like Fallout 5 is a very, very long way away. Given all the ways Microsoft is struggling to justify raising prices and creating new Game Pass tiers, a new Fallout would go a long w?ay to earning back some goodwill.

Unfortunately, we're not likely to get something as majestic as a Larian Studios-developed Fallout. The previous third-party swing at a Fallout game, Fallout: New Vegas, is hailed as one of the best entries in the storied franchise, but Bethesda seems reluctant to let another company work on Fallout again. It came to light just last year that Bethesda had rejected multiple pitches for spin-offs for both Fallout and The Elder Scrolls from New Vegas dev Obsidian Entertainment.

For now, you'll have to make do with the various fan projects, like Fallout: London (assuming it isn't broken again by an update) or this gorgeous concept for Fallout in Unreal Engine 5. That, or hope modders slap a coat of Fallout paint on Baldur's Gate.

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Surprising absolutely no one that's been keeping up with the gaming industry over the past couple of months; Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 is dominati??ng both the zeitgeist and the review charts, now ha??ving become 2023's best-reviewed game.

Indeed, even though 2023 has already had a surprisingly rich roster of top-tier titles, like Nintendo's very own The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur's Gate 3 has successfully mopped the floor with all of its considerable competition. According to Metacritic, Larian has ostensibly created the best game of the year, handily beating Resident Evil 4, Street Fighter 6, and the Dead Space remake - just to list a few additional examples of well-reviewed video games in 202??3.

[caption id="attachment_396210" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Larian Studios[/caption]

Baldur's Gate 3 is the Best Game of 2023?

The fact that Baldur's Gate 3 is an impressive CRPG hasn't come out of nowhere, naturally. Larian Studios initially launched the title via Steam Early Access in October 2020, only to take the next couple of years to produce a truly staggering amount of content and a roster of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired features and gameplay systems to match. The end result ?is predictably high-quality, but the unpredictable bit comes from the game's popularity, surprising even the developer itse?lf.

It is a perfect storm for something like this to happen. Baldur's Gate 3 ticks a few key boxes that stand in direct opposition to some of the most commonly critiqued industry trends. The game is an immense role-playing experience with no live-service elements or microtransactions, and its Early Access tenure means that it launched in a fairly polished state. Baldur's Gate 3 also commands remarkably widespread appeal, what with being a D&D-based continuation?? of an old cl?assic, now having been blown wide open for anyone and everyone to enjoy.

Though there's no denying the immensity of what Larian Studios has accomplished here, some caveats yet remain. Firstly, the Tears of the Kingdom may yet overtake it, as many Baldur's Gate 3 reviews still haven't been fully wrapped up. Secondly, Bethesda Game Studios' long-awaited Starfield is due to launch early in September, meaning that Larian is up against some of the most competent games seen in years. If Starfield doesn't end up falling flat on its face, ?that is.

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Those who have been paying attention to the gaming world these past few days won't be surprised to learn that Baldur's Gate 3 is currently doing quite well for itself. In fact, when l?ast checked, the game had hit a pretty big milestone, showing more than 800,000 concurrent players on Steam.

To get a bit more specific, according to SteamDB (a website that tracks and monitors all things related to the Steam client), the new Baldur's Gate experienced ?a peak of 814,666 players within the last 24 hours.

//youtu.be/XuCfkgaaa08

Bearing in mind, the game only came ou??t last Thursday, so who knows whether this number cou??ld yet be beaten.

Take THAT, 97 other games

Going one step further, Baldur's Gate 3 is currently the third most-played game on Steam, just behind Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Given that these other titles were either developed or published by Valve, you can safely say that BG3 is the most non-Valve-played game at the moment.

Larian Studios' release had an impressive launch when it came out on August 3, scoring pretty big on PC. At the time of writing, it's sitting pretty with a Metacritic score of 95 and a user score of 9.2.

It's been nearly 23 years since the last major installment in the Baldur's Gate series (though we've had expansions and enhanced editions), so fans of the previous? games have no doubt been massively anticipating this third entry.

It's hard to say whether this hype will continue, or whether we're seeing its peak already. After all, Sons of the Forest was a major overnight success, selling two million copies in just one day. Now, you don't really hear much from the co-op horror title. Then again, the Baldur's Gate name is l??ikely to carry more weight in?? the AAA scene.

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Book of Demons makes an appearance too

March isn't going to set the world on fire when it comes to free Prime Gaming offerings, but it does have a few sweet spots. Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition leads the charge, alongside of Adios, I am Fish, Faraway 3: Arctic Escape, Book of Demons, Peaky Blinders: Mastermind, and City Legends: Trapping in Mirror - Collector's Edition. That last one is a "Hidden-Object Puzzle Adventure," and I LOVE getting those for free.

Of course the main event is Baldur's Gate. Released in 2013, the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate has ended up settling in really well in recent years, and also has the Siege of Dragonspear expansion available if you want to go further with it. This is a no-brainer: grab it immediately, even if you hav??e no intention of playing it for years on end. It still holds up, and a lot of that CRPG formula is lost to the ether; unintentionally forging an ?evergreen experience you can't get from many modern games.

Free Games with Prime Gaming, March 2023:

• Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition
• Adios
• I am Fish
• Faraway 3: Arctic Escape
• Book of Demons
• Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
• City Legends: Trapping in Mirror â€?Collector’s Edition

Free in-game content with Prime Gaming, March 2023:

• League of Legends
• Candy Crush Soda
• Divine Knockout
• Grand Theft Auto Online
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Raid: Shadow Legends

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It's out on July 20

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, a classic dungeon crawler from the PS2/Xbox era that was fairly rare on the secondhand market, ?is finally coming to modern platforms soon.

Black Isle Studios has revealed that it's coming to PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X just like its predecessor. All prior content will be intact (including the two secret characters), as well as four difficulty levels?, and two-player local co-op. Black Isle also confirms that the game is Steam Deck verified.

As always, re-releasing old content, especially classics that were out of print and faded into the rarer/pricier used game circuits, is great. Dark Alliance II ha??s historically been one of the more sought-after PS2/Xbox games of that generation; though prices have gone down to more reasonable levels after the re-release was in the mix.

But while both Dark Alliance games have their charms, the real crown jewel would be the two Champions of Norrath titles. That subseries improves upon the hack-and-slash foundation with a ton of depth and polish �not to mention that they actually have offline and online four-player co-op out of the box.

Four-player play was fairly revolutionary at the time in terms of console dungeon crawlers, and given the huge focus on online play and isolation, it still kinda is! My wife and I have randomly been popping Champions of Norrath into our PS2 for? nearly ?two decades, and bringing that series to modern platforms would be a way easier means of doing that!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM95ngzoqrU

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Playing your role gets more rewards

Baldur's Gate 3 has been carrying in Early Access, and today, Larian Studios announced the changes coming in Patch 5 of the RPG. Arriving on July 13, the patch will change up more about Baldur's Gate 3's dice rolls, as well as its AI and the role-playing rewards for your character. The first notable update is the Baldur's Gate 3 Active Roll system.

The usage of dice rolls has been a frequent topic of discussion around Baldur's Gate 3, and the Active Roll looks to enhance and cla??rify your die rolls a bit more. Active Roll will let you, or your party members, cast spells and apply bonuses to their rolls, as well as see modifiers and status?? effects directly within the UI.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7_lnDAvd9s

Background Goals are another big update. Character creation already includes selecting a background, but now, there will be smal??l opportunities to play into your role ??for rewards. So being folksy and heroic, for example, will benefit players who chose the Folk Hero background.

The Camp system is also getting changed. Rather than always heading out into the wilderness, Mini Camps will allow you to have context-dependent alternatives for camp, like the Chapel or the Underdark. There are also Camp Resources, so when you go to sleep, you'll have to choose what to eat, determining whether you'll have a shallow ??or full rest.

There's even more granular changes, like being able to break concentration and separating jum?p from disengage. Characters are also getting some "point-and-click" dialogue for navigating the world, and there will even be a Non-Lethal Attack Mode, for the pa?cifists out there.

The full patch notes will arrive on patch day, July 13, but it's a pretty hefty update, and Larian founder Swen Vincke says at the end of today's update video that the studio is already working on Patch 6. While a full launch is still a ways off, each update of Baldur's Gate 3 has been pretty exciting to follow. I thin??????????????????????????k next Tuesday will be a nice day to start a new save.

For more on how Larian Studio has been approaching the development of Baldur's Gate 3, check out our interview wi??th Vincke from earlier this year.

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This game is expensive on the secondhand market

The whole process of re-releasing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is fascinating: especially when you account for the fact that it arrived on mode?rn systems with basically zero fanfare or warning.

It's even more bizarre when you consider the history of Black Isle Studios (which remained dormant for many years), who published the original Dark Alliance and developed the improved-upon sequel. And when you start to dive into the story behind Champions of Norrath (which utilized the Dark Alliance engine) and the rights issues involved there, it gets really messy. So many of the studios involved in t??hose games simply don't exist anymore!

Alas, someone worked out something, as Dark Alliance 1 is out and you can buy it.? But what about the sequel? App??arently it's "on the table."

Responding to a fan on Twitter, the account for Black Isle Studios notes: "PC release [of the first Dark Alliance] is in the works right now. Hoping to ha??ve it on Steam this year. And the sequel is on the table. Stay tuned!"

While nothing is f??or certain, this seems like an implicit confirmation. And at the very least, Blac??k Isle Studios has access to the sequel from multiple angles. So there's a chance. And I'll take it! Especially since the original game can go for upwards of $150 used on the secondhand market: I was lucky enough to get a copy on the cheap around a decade ago.

Game preservation is a drum I beat often, and a lot of these old forgotten hack and slash titles need a reviv??al because they withstand the test of ??time and deserve to be remembered.

Black Isle Studios [Twitter]

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Nostalgia and jank, wrapped into one $30 package

Oh hey, it's Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, on modern platforms!

If you were alive in 2001 and even remotely liked hack and slash romps, odds are you've heard of this project at some point.  At the time, it was one of very few opportunities to engage in the genre on consoles, outside of dalliances like Diablo 1 on PS1 (we weren't even i??????????????????????????n the age of mass Raven Software Marvel beat 'em ups yet).

Is it still worth playing? Well, it depends on your tolerance for jank, and re-release??s where the bar is basically "does it work?" Mostly.

Within five minutes I was s??laying rats? like it was the early 2000s, alongside of my wife once again: who I beat the original with a few years after its release. Why is the first quest always rat cleanup?!

Dark Alliance is an extremely old school action RPG (you can choose between the preset gender-based classes of bowman, warrior, mage) and it shows its true colors immediately. You'll recognize the extremely '90s cartoon/game voices (including the indomitable Cam Clarke and Tony Jay), which add to the very hokey, but fun, atmosphere. The plotlines are silly, the motivations are often paper thin, and the movement from place to place is extremely lin?ear: but it works, in the sense that it keep??s things going and at the very least, keeps you interested.

It's also still real janky. Enemy animations are sometimes skim??py, and it's semi-common to deal with a multi-hit and suddenly have all your life sucked away in seconds. NPC animations are also very suspect or non-existent, only held up by their voice performances by the aforementioned cast of pure pros. That's mostly because the 10-ish hour game is widely untouched.

Again, it works (a theme of this release), but the cutscenes are still tagging the original resolution along, and the in-game visuals are touched up to look better on 4K screens. That's basically it?: no online play, no enhancements or big additions. Local play is still in, which is going to be the main draw.

So about that. I also encountered a real annoying bug when playing the Xbox One edition on the Series X, that was entirely co-op related. Despite hooking up a second controller I couldn't get the second player to register for a long time: and ended up having to reboot my system and log b?ack into the game multiple times until the issue kind of solved itself.

If you're keen, you can pick this up on Switch, PS4/PS5, and Xbox One/Series X now, with PC and mobile editions coming "later in the year." But having played basically every hack and slash known to man: Dark Alliance 1 is kind of like the appetizer for what comes after. Dark Alliance 2 is a stronger game overall, but the pair of Champions of Norrath games (which are wrapped up in a more confusing publishing deal and used the Dark Alliance engine) are even stronger.

Given how many beat 'em ups and hack and slashes are getting re-releases these days, anything is possible, and I expect some publisher to dump them somewhere at some point. Can someone do the X-Men Legends games next?

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This CRPG is still changing shape

Putting a game out early to the public can be tricky, but Early Access is not new to Larian Studios anymore. The RPG studio utilized a staggered launch with Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel to their success, and now with Baldur's Gate 3, it's looking for a third win.

That doesn't mean there haven't been growing pains, though. Baldur's Gate 3 is a different kind of game from Original Sin 2; it has a dif??ferent combat system, a more cinematic approach, and is firmly rooted in th??e old tomes of Dungeons & Dragons.

Following the recent addition of the Druid class and another Panel From Hell, we reached out to Larian to see just how its Early Access has been progressing. On a call with studio founder Swen Vincke, the studio head says they've been receiving a lot of feedback from the community, through both analytics and vocal feedback on forums like Re??ddit, and there have been a few course corrections.

"I know that the community wants us to go faster than we can," Vincke tells me over a video chat. "It does take time to implement things, especially for a game that's as vast as Baldur's Gate 3—also a game that we're sti??ll deve??loping—so we have to balance the two things to each other."

Yet overall ??Vincke is happy with the reception thus far. Reviews have been positive, and problems that are being flagged by players are things already being charted on the roadmap. So what does the road ahead l?ook like, then?

There are several areas that Vincke says the team has identified, though it's important to separate the good feedback from the bad. There are certain pillars Larian is trying to establish with Baldur's Gate 3, and some of them are going to be different from the Divinity series that Larian fans are more familiar with. Real-time with pause is one concep??t Vincke says Larian won't be implementing.

In other places, the studio is standing firm on its pillars. ??The use of dice has been a particular wrinkle that Larian is still trying to solve; it's core to Dungeons & Dragons, but for those not looking to do some traditional roleplaying, it can be frustrating.

"It brings back memories, actually, of Original Sin 2 where it was about other topics, which was the armor system, which was also polarizing, right?" Vincke recalls. "Or god forbid durability, which was a fight where we had to swallow our pride and say, 'Okay, well, this is the end o?f durability as we know it.'"

Baldur's Gate 3 has kept its dice, but the solution has been a mechanic the studio is calling "Loaded Die:" a ps?eudo-RNG system that will try to balance out all those one-rolls you keep getting. It's still being tinkered with, as Vincke says the studio took a very conservative approach to start, but it's reflective of Larian's approach to feedback.

"So we need to figure out, are people playing the game that we want them to be playing? Or is the game somewher?e failing at communicating it?" Vincke says. That's the goal they're looking at, through an enormous cloud?? of player feedback. And yes, that cloud is enormous.

What's helping Vincke and the ??team at Larian track everything is not just vocal player feedback, but the data it's collecting from playtime. An upside of Early Access is that you have a lot of players engaging with your content, and while that can help for ferreting out bugs, there are deeper problems you can root out with enough data.

It might sound strange, but story has been one area where the data has been a boon. ?At one point during our talk, Vincke pulls up an image to show me what's essentially a graph of the paths players have taken through a specific story dialogue, and what outcomes they received. Vincke estimated it covered about 30,000 dialogues' worth of data, with some results being clear majority and others, ones that might require use of certain mechanics or knowledge, having fewer players reach that conclusion.

Vincke describes these analytics tools, which the studio built up after the success of Divinity: Original Sin 2, as a "gold mine." It helps the studio identify what players are doing and make inferences, and potentially adapt if they're seeing a choice being taken too often or ??not often enough; or even, if the choice is one they want to feel special and earned, keep it that way.

"I call it a very modern way of ?doing game development, because you finally have the data processing to be able to do these kinds of things," Vincke says. "?And it's, it improves it, literally, I mean, there's nothing to be done about it. It makes the games better. They just need time, they need to cook."

Story is certainly of importance, because Baldur's Gate 3 leans much heavier into a cinematic approach. Conversations occur in framed, animated shots rather than talking heads, and every companion has their own lines of dialog??ue to pore over, both on the ??road and back at camp.

Currently in Early Access, there's only the first hub "act" of the game. And while there have been updates adding new content, including a new class for players to pick in character creation, there's ??????????????????????????still a fragile balance between showing enough to get good feedback and not revealing all of what Larian is working on.

Vincke says the studio is trying to be very conservative with what they launch in the Early Access period. That doesn't mean there won't be anything more, but there's also the concern of releasing too much and watching players burnout; he says there are already people who played 300 to 400 hours of Baldur's Gate 3 in Early Access.

"You could argue that it would be a lot easier to just throw everything into Early Access, and then just work with all that feedback and then just release ??it at the end of the exercise," Vincke says. "And at the same time you can say well, if I do that, and I haven't dealt with everything and players happen to have a bad experience there, then that's their entire impressio?n of the game: that it was a bad experience."

Larian is still working on the game, too. Vincke says the studio doesn't have the content of the end of the game ready yet. Even if it did, Vincke doesn't think they'll put it all in Early Access; the studio has a "large army of testers," and the Early Access is not i??ts testing ground for QA. The Early Access is there for community feedback on sy??stems, systems that are present there and will be throughout the rest of the game.

That reasoning helps give context to why the Druid was the next class in lin?e to hit the Early Access. Druids play a pretty major role in the first hub, but when I asked Vincke why it was the latest class to enter the Early Acces?s build, the answer surprised me a bit.

"It was one of the hardest classes to get right," Vincke tells me. "So we wanted to put it in there to force ourselves to go through?? the entire process of that class, and at the same time to see what people were going to be doing with it, because we are going fairly far wi??th what you can do with Wild Shape."

Vincke says that Larian has ambitions, still, for what it's going to add. Drui??d provides a very different experience compared to the other classes, so it's?? an interesting question mark to address now, rather than later.

"So we'r?e not going to necessarily put the classes that are easiest to make first into [Early Access], we're putting the ones that are interesting for us also, to see what the community does with it," Vinc??ke says.

Throughout Early Access, these decisions have been made: what to show now, and what to wait on. Vincke tells me that the process of ?determining just where the Early Access cuts off was simply trying to find places that made logical s??ense, but even that is tricky. Not every path has a natural climax, so Larian had to find cuts that felt reasonable, even if they're also artificial.

One way this can already be seen is in Baldur's Gate 3's companions. Of the traveling adventurers you can recruit to your c??ause right now, there are a number of fascinating characters: the enigmatic Shadowheart, the i??ntriguing Astarion, and the fairly direct Lae'zel, to name a few.

The player fights alongside them during the day, but upon returning to camp, they can interact with these characters and have conversations that shed more light on their backstories. Already there are theories about what certain dialogues mean, or could imply for future story arcs in the full release??, and Vincke says we're only seeing fragments of their storylines right now.

"It's interesting to see what people write about them? and making their opinion, especial??ly if you know stuff that comes later. So it's really, it's cool to see. But it also tells you, Yeah, okay, well, they're completely seeing this person like that, and that's actually not what we meant from the get-go, we wanted them to seem like that."

Baldur's Gate 3 is also pretty open-ended: the first area basically (literally) drops you into the first hub after its big opening sequence, and then it's up to you to decide where to go, who to talk to, and what leads to chase in terms of getting that pesky Illithid tadpole out of your brain. Vincke says it's vastly more complex than Divinity: Original Sin 2 was in terms of permutations.

But there's al??so parts we haven't seen yet; significant changes in the main storyline that weren't ready or included yet, even in this first act area. Vincke?? says the team is very iterative in its process, so things change.

Of course, there is combat, and Vin??cke says the team is working on that aspect as well. He says they think it's a little bit too random still, in cases where they'd like it to be more tactical. They're also tooling with the RNG in some areas, and are looking for ways of streamlining it to have a "??more modern experience."

Martial classes are a particular area he highlights, as having a party full of just fighters can be tricky, which I found pretty interesting. In my own experience, I've been loving the ability to push, shove, and throw things to manipulate the world with my Githyanki Warrior, and those mechanics are something he says he's hap?py people are grappling with. He tells me in a recent meeting, some of the studio members were discussing ways in which they had defeated an encounter using their own ingenuity and exploiting systems in unexpected ways, something Vincke says is one of the core pillars of what Larian is trying to do.

"I mean, that's why we put those?? mechanics in there," Vincke says. "So the creative use of the mec?hanics for the players is the thing that we try to maximize. D&D is about your agency, your creativity. We're trying to give you the same tool set still, in a fairly accessible way."

While development is proceeding, Larian Studios has not been immune to the effects of the global pandemic. The team mad?e a swift move to working from home, and while adapted rapidly thanks in part to its experience working with teams across the globe, the missing component was direct communication.

Leads being able to directly communicate with their teams has been one of the harder points of the pandemic, Vincke tells me. Having to do sound mixing online versus in-person is one area he highlights, as well as doing motion capture for cinematics, which has become more prominent in Baldur's Gate 3 than previous Lar??ian games. He does envision the studio returning to the office once it's safe, joking about meeting the new hires they've made in the last year or so face-to-face rather than over video.

The name "Baldur's Gate" has also been looming overhead. Vincke recognized the pressure that came with the name early on, and that incorporating more cinematics into their games was a "big gamble." The reception has been good though, and Vincke says ??the studio hasn't c??ompromised on the amount of choice it offers to players in the game.

When I aske?d whether Vincke and Larian Studios knows when version 1.0 is coming, I compared it to a ?train pulling into the station. Vincke says they know where, but don't know when. They know where the ending is, and they have a pretty good overview of what's left to do, and that they need to do them right.

"So we still have quite some work ahead of us," Vincke says. "But we do know what we're making and? when we're going to be… we'll know when we're at the end, so it is visible. It's just still a lot of work."

As we wrapped up our conversation, I remarked that I was eager to jump back in afterwards and maybe make a new character, to try some of the Druid abilities out for myself. Vincke's response surprised me, and ended up being my biggest takeaway: to not burn myself out on Baldur's Gate 3.

He advised to "try and keep some surprises for yourself," because things are still changing. Baldur's Gate 3 is still changing, and there are aspects of this game that might be different in some way I could overlook, thinking I had seen them already in the Early Access. The worst that could happen is that when Baldur's Gate 3 finally launches, I'll skip through a scene or not try out a choice because I t?hink I've already seen and know it. That's not what Larian is plann?ing on.

"You won't know it," Vincke?? says. "It will be different, and so that's the prom?ise."

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'Your account will be how we facilitate cross-saves for Baldur’s Gate 3 across Steam, Stadia, and GOG, as well as potential future platforms'

The highly anticipated Baldur's Gate 3 is finally heading into early access very soon (October 6). Right now, developer Larian Studios is planning on releasing the game on Steam, Stadia and GOG, but there might be some light at the end of the tunnel thanks to information from a forum post today.

The post itself deals with cross-save and cross-play capabilities, which will henceforth be linked to a Larian account. Yes, another account. The post states: "It’s early days, but signing up now helps us stress-test the service as we roll out more features. It’s entirely optional (you don’t need an account to play Baldur’s Gate 3), but in the future it’ll be the account that links your adventures together. For example, your account will be how we facilitate cross-saves for Baldur’s Gate 3 across Steam, Stadia, and GOG, as well as potential future platforms ??if a??nd when released."

There's two key takeaways here. If you're content with playing Baldur's Gate 3 solo (or with someone on the same platform) and on one device, you can i??gnore this account entirely: which is a step up from some major publishers. Also, the "potential future platforms if and when released" is very telling, as Larian seemingly is waiting to announce console editions in the near or far future.

Either way, this is something ?to be aware of going forward. No one likes to make new accounts on a weekly basis, but this seems like it's one of Larian's only options to facilitate cross-save, at l??east.

Introducing the new Larian Account ahead of Early [Larian Studios Forums] Thanks Jeff!

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That's the latest plan, anyway

?It won't be much longer before we're chatting up squish??y Intellect Devourers.

If you're into Larian Studios enough to want to show up for Baldur's Gate 3 on day one, rough edges and all, we now have a release date: the Early Access launch is set for September 30 on PC and Stadia.

[Update: Larian is charging $59.99 for Baldur's Gate 3 in Early Access.]

The Early Access date was announced during a lengthy Panel From Hell with creative director?? Swen Vincke, senior writer Adam Smith, ??Wizards of the Coast's Chris Perkins, and host Geoff Keighley.

At launch, the Early Access build of Baldur's Gate 3 will have five Origin characters – Astarion (Elf/Vampire Rogue), Gale (Human Wizard), Lae'zel (Gith??yanki Warrior), Shadowheart (Half-Elf Cleric), and Wyll (Human Warlock) – as well as the option to create your own if th??at's more your speed.

The game's first act is "approximately 25 hours of self-contained content." In a press release, Larian said to expect 80 combat encounters, 45,980 lines of dialogue, and 146 spells and? actions, just ??to name a few figures. As for the Early Access time frame, the current estimate is "at least one year."

The recommended specs – Intel i7 4770k / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, 16 GB RAM, and Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX580 – are "subject to change" and "might decrease over the course of Early Access."

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We'll find out more in two weeks

At one of the many pseudo-E3 replacement streams, Larian founder and CEO Swen Vincke boldly told fans that the studio is trying to get Baldur's Gate 3 into Early Access in August. It was a confident approach to a ??not-confident situation. Vincke acknowledged that COVID-19 hurdles made that August target a big old question mark, but Larian was trying anyway.

Shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars... or something like that. Baldur's Gate 3 won'??t make August, and no one really blames Laria??n for that. It is, however, coming shortly thereafter.

Good news and bad news. BG3 won’t hit August, but it’s just around the corner. We’ll be announcing the release date, as well as big news on the Panel From Hell alongside @geoffkeighley, @LarAtLarian and the Larian crew. Tune in Aug 18th. //t.co/S1RlVpJ8yw pic.twitter.com/NCkrnHHpH0

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) August 4, 2020

Geoff Keighley (who else) is hosting a panel on August 18 where Larian will divulge Baldur's Gate 3's release date and other "big news." Larian says the Early Access launch is "j??ust around the corner." 

While technically a delay, Vincke's original statement probably only had people hopeful-but-wary. August would've been nice, but not??????????????????????????hing goes to plan in 2020.

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We won't take up much of your time

Well, I have good ne??ws and bad news. Which one do you want first?

Bad news? Each of the clips in this Baldur's Gate 3 sizzle reel is about one-second long. That's super short! A mayfly lives for 24 hours, yet a mayfly could watch 86,400 of these Baldur's Gate 3 clips. That is n?ot?? what you should be doing with your little precious time on this earth, mayfly. Figure your life out.

Throughout June, we'll be revealing more about #BaldursGate3 starting June 6, on the #GuerrillaCollective Showcase. //t.co/alQZxS4kH6 It's almost time to venture forth. pic.twitter.com/I4Cjrf0BIT

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) May 29, 2020

The good news is that there are 28 new Baldur's Gate 3 clips and it won't even take up a lot of? your day. Quantity over quality, baby!

If this sizzle reel strikes you as "insubstantial" and "not really showing off much about the game," I have a bonus round of good news. Larian Studios is taking June to slowly reveal more and more about Baldur's Gate 3. It starts June 6 during the Guerrilla Col??lective showcase.

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'We would have to tone down the textures and this and that'

The curtain is finally pulled back on Baldur's Gate III. We just got a full look at the game at PAX East courtesy of a gameplay stream from Larian Studios, and we now have some sort of window for Early Access: "a couple of months." Thanks to a new interview with executive producer Dav??id Walgrave by way of Eurogamer, we have ev?en more of an idea of how this project is shaping up.

One of the big debates in the community deals with the decision to go turn-based in 2020, and Walgrave has his own answer for that: "Why did we go for turn-based instead of real-time with pause? Because D&D to us is a turn-based game and we're really good - or we have become really good - with turn-based combat. So that, I think, is one of our strengths, and trying out?? real-time with pause for now, just because the originals were?? that? It's a big risk."

But what about the fact that Baldur's Gate III isn't coming to PS4 or Xbox One? According to Walgrave, the game couldn't run in its current incarnation on consoles. He muses, "There's a lot of technical upgrades and updates th?at we did to our engine, and I don't know if it would be capable of being able to actually run on those things," then concedes that there is a chance it could run, but they've had to tone down the textures and nearly everything else visually: a??t that point it wouldn't be the same. When asked if next-gen consoles were a possibility, Walgrave responded with a nod, though nothing is confirmed yet.

However, it is still releasing on Stadia as well as Steam Early Access. That will happen at the same time thankfully, as Walgrave confirms that there is no Stadia exclusivity or even timed exclusivity deal. So if you were worried that it would be locked to the platform for an??y amount of time, it won't. He als??o notes that Stadia "helped" a bit with its extra processing power, but doesn't give specifics.

Either way, it's a win. Baldur's Gate is back on its home platform of choice: PC.

I don't think current-gen consoles would be abl??e to run Baldur'??s Gate 3 [Eurogamer]

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Here's the first look at turn-based combat

What does Baldur's Gate look like through the lens of Divinity: Original Sin 2 developer Larian Studios? Today, during an on-stage gameplay demonstration of Baldur's Gate 3 at PAX East, we found out.

First off, combat is turn-based – not real-time with pauses – and it's built after D&D Fifth Edition rules. It's possible to start a turn outside of combat and enact a plan in six-second increments to get the jump on someone. Baldur's Gate 3 ?will also let you split up your online party "to follow your ?own quests."

As for the story, well, let's just say I'm now afraid of brain tadpoles. He??re's the setup, per Larian.

"Abducted, infected, lost... You are turning into a monster, drawn from a Mind Flayer parasite planted in your brain, but as t?he corruption inside you grows, so too does your power. That power may help you to survive, but there will be a price to pay. More than any ability, the bonds of trust that you build within your party could be your greatest strength. Caught in a conflict between devi??ls, deities, and sinister otherworldly forces, you will determine the fate of the Forgotten Realms together."

"The save game system is broken, so that means that if I die, if it's a party wipe, I'll just have to restart," began Larian founder Swen Vincke. He warned that "combat is fairly high-stakes" in Baldur's Gate 3.

Later, during a turn-based combat encounter against a trio of Intellect Devourers, he missed multiple ?all-but-guaranteed arrow shots – we're talking? a 90% chance – and was surrounded. The party wiped!

After speeding through the intro and getting back to the Overgrown Chapel, Vincke played smarter. He dipped his bow in fire, initiated turn-based mode outside of combat to sneak in, and had better positioning. It worked. But a moment later, while showing how players can move environmental objects to, "for instance, make stairs," he mis-clicked? and stabbed his companion right in? the face.

The pre-alpha demo was full of laughs, in a g??ood way. It's exactly what you'd expect from Larian.

"All of the dialogues in the game – like literally all of them – have been performance-captured, voice-recorded, given the cinematic treatment," Vincke said. "And there hasn't ??been any compromise."

The PAX E?ast demo was long and occasionally messy, but encouraging. The game looks great. I've captured a handful of exploration, combat, inventory, and character creation screenshots.

Baldur's Gate 3 is "gonna be in Early Access in a couple of months. ?We don'?t know exactly when."

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A peek at the 100-plus-hour adventure

[Update: The Baldur's Gate 3 PAX East stream is about to start.]

Baldur's Gate 3 has been riding high ever since that gnarly body-horror announcement trailer, but even with Larian Studios' pedigree, a cinematic can only go so far. When's? the nex??t reveal happening?

Larian has set the Baldur's Gate 3 gameplay reveal for February 27, 2020, at 12:30 p.m. Creative director Swen Vincke is hosting an on-stage demo and Q&A at PAX East, both of which will be live-streamed, and the st??udio will run follow-up demos the rest of th??e weekend at booth #14309.

For now, here's another checking-out-the-studio teaser – albeit with a dragon this time.

"We have grown our team to 350 people and have been working on new technology and pipelines to allow our team to create a truly next-generation RPG," said Larian. "There will be mor?e than 100+ hours of content, with all the depth you'd expect and many surprises along the way."

Fans have a lot of reasons to be pumped for Baldur's Gate 3 with Larian at the helm, but there are still so many unknowns about? the game. Once we dig deep into the camera and combat system – two elements that'll surely be a focal point on Feb. 2??7 – I think people will be able to breathe easy.

It's kind of scary how much is riding on this project, but I'm confident it'll turn out well.

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Probably at PAX East

There hasn't been much news about Baldur's Gate III ever since its unveiling last June at a Google Stadia event. Thin??gs have been so quiet that an announcement tea??se qualifies as a story on a slow Friday.

Larian Studios, developer of Divinity: Original Sin and the new steward of Baldur's Gate, says that we'll hear more about the third installment in late February. This short teaser???? video sets February 27 as the date we can expect to learn more:

Something's Brewing. #baldursgate3 pic.twitter.com/FMSkrYmjkl

— Baldur's Gate 3 (@baldursgate3) January 17, 2020

The significance of February 27? That's the start of PAX East. The smart money is on a Larian panel on Thursday afternoon where we get more Baldur's Gate III information. PAX hasn't ??yet released the schedule, so we don't actually have confirmation as to who's presenting when. But, everything seems to align too nicely for it to be anythi?ng else.

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Bhaal is angry

Developer Beamdog has delayed the release for the console ports of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. Originally meant to hit digital and?? retail shops yesterday, the games will now be coming to PS4, Xbox One, and Switch on October 15. Neverwinter Nights, o??n?? the other hand, is still on track for its December release.

The news actually broke roughly two weeks back but was overlooked by many. The developer made the announcement via Twitter and it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I normally wouldn't reiterate weeks old new??s, but I feel it's important to let potenti?al buyers know. The classic RPGs are still heading to consoles, just at a later than expected date.

Slight delay in console release of Baldur's Gate pack, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale [Eurogamer]

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'The next chapter in the Baldur's Gate saga'

So Google got to steal that massive Baldur's Gate III reveal away from E3 last week. Rad for them right? Well it's also on PC, ?not just Stadia, so don't get too upset.

Developer Larian Studios took to the stage at the PC Gaming Show to muse on it a bit, and while we didn't get any actual Baldur's Gate III video game news, we got Baldur's Gate III news nontheless. Wait, what?

Yep, the very Dungeons & Dragons-centric series is going back to its roots, as there will be a tabletop prequel released later this year in September that leads into the game. It's set 100 years after Baldur's Gate II, and it'll have a full level 1-13 campaign.

Baldur's Gate III is confirmed for both PC and Goo??gle's Stadia platfor?m. As Larian said on stage today, "it'll be ready when it's ready." Nope! No secret window.

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Guess what? It's confirmed for Stadia

Larian Studios has been around for a long while. For over two decades, in fact, and now they're handling an even older franchise: Baldur's Gate III.

Revealed during Google's Stadia Connect event today, the studio calls it a "dream come true," and the "biggest game they've ever done." They had to triple their size to handle it, and had been asking Wizards of the Coast for ages to do it: finally they wore down and a deal was struck. Baldur's Gate III was supposed to be a thing back in the early 2000s, but was unceremoniously canceled. Larian says that their work on the Divinity series has prepared them for this moment.

Baldur's Gate III will arrive on Stadia later this year. Other platforms are not confirmed outside of PC. You can find the game's new landing page here.

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Baldur's Gate bigwig moves on to new projects

Game designer James Ohlen, responsible for some of?? developer BioWar??e's most memorable titles, has announced he has left the Canadian developer in order to pursue personal projects.

Ohlen has been a BioWare employee for 22 years, and over those two decades has had a huge hand in creating some of their biggest fantasy titles, including Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon's Age: Origins and the amazing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

A huge fan of fantasy fiction and Dungeons & Dragons, Ohlen is leaving in order to pen a book, The Player's Guide to Odyssey of the Dragonlords, working alongside another former BioWare employee, creative director Jesse Sky. The team make up new publishing venture Arcanum Worlds, which h??opes to create further tabletop role-playing game tomes.

Ohlen is the third big name to leave BioWare in recent times, following the departure of Dragon Age director Mike Laidlaw during the Fall of 2017, and Mass Effect lead writer Drew Karpyshyn in March of this year.

James Ohlen leaves BioWare to work on tabletop gaming project???s [Twitter]

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A stlarning good time

Fifteen years. Fifteen years! She got one of your kids, got you for -- wait, no. That's how long it's been since we've seen a new Baldur's Gate game. The Enhanced Editions have been kind enough to grace our pres??ence recently, giving us a strong reason to revisit the series, but there's never re?ally been a big draw to playing those editions over the modded originals.

Until now!

_{[Note: This review contains spoilers for Baldur's Gate and assumes you have played the original game as it is required to play this expansion.]}

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (Linux, Mac, PC [reviewed])
Developer: Beamdog
Publisher: Beamdog
MSRP: $19.99
Release Date: March 31, 2016 

The life of a hero is never dull. Siege of Dragonspear fills the gap between Baldur's Gate and its sequel, Shadows of Amn. A new threat has entered the realm, this time in the form of a crusade led by Caelar Argent, the Shining Lady. The character herself is easily one of the biggest draws of the writing. From the very first conversation with her I was hooked -- I wanted to meet up with her again, just to talk more! She never came off as easy to hate for me, except for the fact that she tried to kill me very early on. Otherwise, she's almost...relat?eable, which makes this villain much more dynamic than I was expecting.

The game starts the party off at level seven, which is wonderful. It's a great compromise between starting with nothing, which makes no sense given the context, and beginning as overpowered, which would make progress feel worthless. After creating a character, you'll quickly wrap up some loose ends with Sarevok's cronies, and then the true adventure begins. It's also possible to import a character from the first Enhanced Edition,, and the final save can be imported into Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition.

The writing of the classic characters is on par with what fans should expect, for ??the most part. I genuinely enjoyed hanging around old friends like Minsc again. It certainly helps that many of the same voice actors from almost twenty years ago have come back to reprise their original roles. While I'm sure plenty of people out there could imitate Minsc or Imoen's voices, there's nothing quite like the real thing. Unless you're Jaheira, whose voice actress does not return, in which case it seems as if you don't have much to say at all. I can't say I'm?? a fan of Safana's reworked personality, but since it's easy enough to simply not use her, I didn't lost any sleep over it.

Then there's Mizhena. Somehow, this incredibly minor character has become the most well known in the entire game. She's a non-playable trans character that travels with the player's troop and offers up potions when asked. I had already interacted with this character before the Internet hub-bub, and my first reaction was "al??right then" and I proceeded to never think anything of it, and I still don't. So there's that.

The new playable characters are a bit of a mixed bag, though I'd venture a guess to say that depends on what type of characters you prefer. I thought Corwin was all-around boring, but always kept Glint hanging around. I'm going to guess tha??t most people don't like him, but I enjoy his sarcastic "can we stop now" mentality about things.

Actually, the game as a whole is quite sassy, perhaps a little too much. I normally like to play my characte??r as a wise-cracking lovebug who doesn't take any guff from anyone. That being said, the amount of wise-cracks available in the dialogue options is a little absurd, even for my tastes. Still, there's nothing forcing me to pick them (I still did).

What did strike me?? as odd was how convenient it was meeting up with EVERYONE again. Walking through the woods, I didn't expect Rasaad to be standing around and simply...waiting. Oh, Edwin! Fancy meeting you in the same exact place I happen to be. The speed at which the old gang is introduced was far too rapid and felt incredibly forced. I think I would have rather had them all traveling in a wagon together on their way home from a bar when a bump knocked Boo out of the wagon and so everyone, with a sincere love for Boo, jumps out to save him and oh at the same time they bump into my characte??r. At least this way, it all happens at once.

Gameplay is classic Baldur's Gate, which is a mixed bag at t??his point. I still find it impossible to click on something I want, especially when trying to loot something. Often I feel as if there's about two pixels of leeway when finding the one spot on the dead body that I need to click on to loot it. I'd zoom in, but everyt??hing looks awful when up close and it hardly helps. The UI continues to baffle me, because there are countless better ways to display the same information.

I've also had some strange bugs occur. Once, I was able to walk through anything and ev?erything on a map, even being able to walk out into the black abyss. Luckily I had an auto-save from right before, since it was in a scripted scene, so I never lost any progress. I've also seen NPC characters completely disappear, seemingly never to return. It's never broken my game or impeded progress, but it sure is jarring.

A great addition comes in the way of difficulty. A new "Story Mode" is available, which makes the combat pretty mindless since characters can't die. You could have a group of mages and bruteforce your way through any interaction with just physical auto-attacks. It's a nice addition, even if no one ends up using it. I did encounter quite the interesting bug while testing it out though -- one of my party members died. Well, okay then, that sort of defeated the purpose. I'll assume it was a bug, since the description of the mode specifically mentions that it should not happen. The polar opposite, a "Legacy of Bhaal" difficulty, is also available, but screw that! I don't love the thrill of combat that much.

There's a ton of content here, though it's much more linear than what Baldur's Gate fans are used to. Don't take this, however, as a downside. Personally, I enjoyed the structure.  There are still areas to ex??plore and plenty of secrets to find, but the core plot has a stricter path. It makes sense, since they have a definitive starting and ending point, and allowed for some tighter writing overall. Plus, if you want some more open story lines, you can always enjoy the originals!

Chances are, if you're curious about Siege of Dragonspear, there is one question you need answered: how is the writing? The short answer is that it is good. There are some high points and certainly some low points, but overall it's just fine. If you are going to spend your days analyzing and cross-referencing it then you will likely find more things to hate than me. But as a long-time fan who has fond memories of spending afternoons with the spiral-bound manual of Baldur's Gate 2, it's an enjoyable romp.

It's a different sort of game when compared to its brothers, but it works very well in the space it occupies. It's unfortunate that there are quite a handful of technical issues, because otherwis??e this is a great excuse to head back to the Sword Coast.

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