Throughout Baldur's Gate 3, choosing your character's race is one of the most important decisions you'll make. It affects tons of dialogue throughout the game, and changes?? how some characters treat y??our 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 playthrou??gh, why not consider one of thes??e race mods?

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 t??heir 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 compatibility 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 f??it for various playthroughs, each with extensive lore.

If you enjoy sitting in Baldur's Gate 3's character ??creator for hours, deliberating over every detail, you'll get lots 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 immersio??n-obsessed heart happy. It uses the vanilla "Undead" tag for your Tav, affecting how 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 o??riginal homebrew TTRPG system by author johauna's husband. Four races are added, and numerous 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 feels like it should've? been pa?rt 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 customizatio??n 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 subraces: Greenskin Goblin and Dankwood Goblin. You can customize your Goblin as you would a regular Tav. There's even a custom Hire??ling named Ol' Shiny to bring along on your adventures.

If that hasn't convinced you?, ??playing as a Goblin gives you access to a baby squirrel companion that will accompany 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 novelty 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 a?nd makes it playable. C?onsidering their humanoid form, it's a little surprising they're not playable in the vanilla game, but regardless, this mod solves this.

Creato??r EmeraldTechno has gone the extra mile, creating new male Dryads. 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 leg?s, which obviously aren't possible in the vanilla game.

Creator labotor has added many customization options to f?lesh out Wine and Revelry (Satyr Race), including various tails, horns, and ear options to give you total flexibility with your Sat??yr Tav.

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It has been over a year now since the launch of Baldur's Gate 3, and its modding community is starting to come in?to its own. No aspect of the game remains untouched as talented modders aim to perfect Larian's legendary CRPG with additions 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 a??dventure 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 rapiers found in this mod are caster-friendly, which, according to kharneth, "makes them good weapons for mixed 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 locat?ions, 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 yourself using items from Underwood's Weapon Pack without e??ven 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 give 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. Laria?n's epic CRPG is a world filled with possibilities, 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 little fanmade magic in the Character 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 t?hese options, which is a shame but is understandable. It doesn't replace 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?? separate options, 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. This mod replaces the bas??e game's tatt??oos 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 r?eplace 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-game 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 character 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, incl??uding 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 colors to play with during character creation. Sure, the number of choices in th??e base game is fine, but this is a whole new world, and you won't be able to return. You'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, then cycling through the options in Vessnelle's Hair Collection is sure to add a considerable amo??unt 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 launch, 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 clo??thing 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 bits are i?n 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 wessle?n. 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? outfits 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 coo?l quality-of-life change that should have been in the vanilla game.

Helms of Faerun

Helms of Faerun is the kind of Baldur's Gate 3 mod th??at'll make you 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 look 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 intended 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 darkness 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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Baldur's Gate 3 has finally launched on PS5. Much like its PC counterpart, it has received near-unanimous praise, though con??sole players haven't been without problems. Some PS5 players?? have been dealing with the frustrating problem of game crashes.

Larian Studios has acknowledged the issue, and a Tweet explains that the bug is likely connected to PSN. Developers are working on it, but in the meantime, you're advised to disconnect your console from the internet when playing Baldur's Gate 3.

A fix will hopefully be out soon, as Larian Studios has a patch ??scheduled for September 21, and it'll finally bring the game to Macs. Larian Studios still ?has plenty of work ahead, as there is also an Xbox Series X/S port on the way.

Critically acclaimed but not flawless

Though BG3 has been basking in the spo??tlight, players have also been struggling through quite a few issues. Act 3's performance taxing even the most capable PCs is the most glaring problem, and PS5 players haven't be??en spared either.

Larian Studios has been mending many of these issues with major BG3 patches, including one which featured over a hundred fixes. Fortunately, these minor hurdles haven't been enough to stop the game from reaching over 800,000 concurrent players on Steam and drawing ado?ration from both critics and players.

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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 dominating both the ze?itgeist and the review ch??arts, now having 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 2023.

[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. T?he end result is predictably high-quality, but the unpredictable bit comes from the game's popularity, surprising even the d??eveloper itself.

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 classic, 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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Well, the time has arrived. As you're reading this, Baldur's Gate 3 is live, after years of Early Access held only a select slice of its first act. And I'm here to tell you that, especi??ally if you're a returning Early Access player, you shouldn't just blitz t?hrough the whole starting area right away.

I've had a little bit of time, roughly a few days, to play the launch version of Baldur's Gate 3. It's nowhere near enough to write a full review—that will arrive much later, after I've sunk the requisite dozens of hours into? seeing this journey through. For the most part, I've largely been retreading similar paths to what I played in the Early Access, dealing with the simmering ten?sion around the Druid grove, tiefling refugees, and nearby goblin camp.

So what I'm here to give you?? today is a tip, a piece of advice, from one Early Access player to some of the others who might be reading this: don't just speed your way through to Act 2.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TmGocqpY0Y

Acting up

Even from the very beginning, Baldur's Gate 3 is noticeably different between its Early Access and launch state. Those who might want to avoid some surprises or light spoilers may want to skip down to the next header section;? I won't go deep into story specifics, but there was one particular difference that caught my eye almost immediately.

And that was the role of your other created character. In the Early Access, the creation screen would task you with choosing and designing your avatar (which can also be one of the Origin characters now, in full release). Then, it would bring you to anoth??er character creation screen and ask, "Who do you dream of?" Larian Studios esse?ntially asks you to tell on yourself, and then uses that avatar to tempt you later on.

Well, that entire set-up is gone. In its place, there is the dream guardian. At first, I didn't see much of them after I designed them; b?ut over time, they began to reveal themselves, and with it a greater threat to both the party and Faerûn. Or so they sa??y.

The more you talk with this guardian, the more ??it seems like Larian has built out this plot. In fact, the most intriguing part of the early goings for me has been the illithid powers and how they tie in. Before, it felt like a gamble. Do you want to use the tadpole in your brain to force a skill check? Do you listen to the temptations living in your dreams?

With the guardian, and the framing of the tadpole that's shifted since Early Access, that relationship feels like a greyer area, full of more unknowns and mysteries, and it's much more interesting to explore. This aspect really feels most interesting to Early Access players because they're so familiar with the prior version. Why did this change? How does it shift the story, and your relationship with your newfound illithid powers? I'm really,?? really curious to see how.

Either way, it's an early twist that made me realize I wasn't just playing back through a section I'd seen a few times over in E?arly Access. And the changes continued.

Crash into me

The entire introductory section aboard the nautiloid ship has also been reworked and redone. Many of the beats remain the same, including who you work with, and who you can assist or not. But the actual seq?uence itself feels trimmed down to its core pieces and faster, almost like Larian knew that players had seen this part many times already.

Then, of course, the ship crashes and we're into the journey proper. Baldur's Gate 3 from here feels very familiar. It's a CRPG running on Larian's homebrew of the Dungeons & Dragons 5E ruleset. There are Wizards and Warlocks, Mon?ks and Barbarians. Fights are turn-based, using a looser range system rather than grid tiles, and filled with interlinking systems of actions and ?reactions.

Igniting barrels to cause explosions, combining spells for devastating effects, or just kicking a goblin into a chasm, it's all here. At one ?point, I struggled with a particularly hard encounter, until I lured my foes onto a rickety bridge and took out the supports. I might not be able to l?oot them for valuables, but it was an efficient way of solving the problem.

All of that is the same as it's been in Early Access, with some enhancements. If you've been away a while, you might be surprised by some of the neat touches Larian has made over the years. The reaction system for abilities like Hellish Rebuke and Reckless Attack is straightforward and easy to use. Menus and interfaces have seen revamps, making most of them pretty clean and easy to get through. There's a lo?t of info and cursor hovers to help explain basics as you go.

I do think there's a bit of assumption that Larian makes, that the player will buy in and either arrive pre-knowledgeable about how D&D wo?rks or willing to seek the information out. There are tutorials, but they're brief. Once the adventure starts, you're in it.

Gather your party

The adventure feels pretty good, though. As I said before, the first area surrounding the grove and goblin camp will feel familiar at first. But a combination of new interact??ions, new scenes, and new characters makes everything feel a bit different.

Karlach, the final addition to the Origin roster (alongside the Dark Urge), is a big piece of this. She's got a g??reat storyline, and it ties closely into the rewritten plot beats for Wyll. Having a cheerful, optimistic Barbarian with a heart of gold and fire is a great addition to the camp.

But all the little details keep pulling me in different directions. I had thought, going into Act 1, that I'd be speedrunning through it. Instead, I'm replaying old quests to see how my new members react to them. I'm testing out my updated powers, exploring areas that feel a bit tuned and tweaked. Certain items are just where I remember them being in Early Access, but getting back there still feels fresh. It's not all sunshine and roses; I found times where Baldur's Gate 3 hitches on itself a bit, hit a few glitches and bugs, and I've especially noticed some pre-release lighting oddities that ??I hope Larian patches out s?oon.

This is good news for those who want to replay Baldur's Gate 3, at the least. Even the thought of that seems so far off, though. I'm still on my own run, with my own created Tav, exploring the things I want to explore. What's reassuring about Baldur's Gate 3 today is that, even after years of this Early Access being available and players digging into its available content, it's still fun to r??oll a n??ew character.

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The Crusaders embark for a new realm

Owlcat Games' Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is making the leap to consoles. The giant RPG will launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One both physically and digitally on Sept. 29, as we??ll as Nintendo Switch via cloud.

Wrath of the Righteous will also be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, via backward compatibility. Once the console version launches, the Enhanced Edition of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous will become the standard version, and PC owners will all get that version for free on Sept. 29.

Owlcat has also announced that The Treasure of the Midnight Isles, the third DLC for this Pathfinder, launches on August 11. This new adventure heads to the Midnight Isles, where horrors and terrors abound. Ther??e's both a standalone rogue-like mode and campaign option available, allowing players to experiment with builds and party compositions if they'd like. Even if a party dies, its progress can help future?? playthroughs.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlJzR7vcmFs

The Treasure of the Midnight Isles will b??e available either as a separate purchase, or as part of the season pass.

Many stories to tell

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is, by all accounts, a massive RPG. It's got a somewhat-daunting amount of content, not all too dissimilar from other isometric RPGs. But if you're looking for a console RPG to eat up your time, you could probably do worse. Impressions of the PC version seem mostly positive, and there's even more on the ?way with t??he Midnight Isles DLC.

Owlcat, meanwhile, is also forging on to a new franchise. Last month's Warhammer Skulls festival showcase confirmed that Owlcat is creating a Warhammer 40K CRPG, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

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Role-playing in the 40K universe

A new Warhammer 40,000 game was announced today, with a bit more of a role-playing vibe. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is ?a classical, isometric-style RPG from Owlcat Games.

The trailer, shown as part of today's annual Warhammer Skulls festival, is packed with RPG signposts. It's got an isometric style, and the trailer declares Rogue Trader is the first "classic CRPG" set in the Warhammer 40K universe.

Behind this RPG is Owlcat Games, a studio that's previously worked on several Pathfinder RPGs. Both Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous seemed to do well by those who dig isometric games. And now, the team will tackle the 40K universe.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4VUmndj9rw

The story will follow a Rogue Trader, who contr??ols their own merchant empire and is allowed to explore space with the blessing of the Emperor. This means powers, the ability to go where you want, and a giant?? voidship.

The RPG side will le??t you meet potential allies and enemies, and make choices that will affect the lives of others. Companions can include the likes of a Space Marine, an Aeldari Ranger, or a Sister of Battle. And once battle kicks off, they'll play out in a tactical, turn-based format.

Playing the classics

It sounds like a pretty interesting universe for Owlcat Games to explore for its next RPG. While plenty of Warhammer games have been announced, especially over the course of today's festivities, many of them are a bit more action-oriented. While shooting, blasting, and Space Marine-ing through hordes is all good fun, sometimes you want to ki??ck your feet up and play?? an RPG.

The potential for RPG storytelling in the Warhammer 40,000 universe seems ripe. Those who want to see what Owlcat does with it earlier can pre-order to get Alpha and/or Beta access to the game, depending on what tier you pre-order. No release date has been set yet for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, but it is targeting both PC and consoles.

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Fistful of relics

Weird West eases players into the weird. It starts out with familiar western tales, of bounty hunters and lawless desperados. Shootouts will have bullets whizzin??g overhead and slow-motion dives, with revolvers ?and rifles sending rounds blazing across the screen.

Then there's ghouls, ghosts, and ravenous hordes. Hints of something greater begin to emerge, as characters talk to your avatar with an alarming familiarity. Witches meet you at the crossroads, offering moral quandaries and games in exchange for power. Weird West is an immersive sim, and it aims to immerse players deep into its wond??erfully weird world.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3sqhIczLcQ

Weird West (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox, via Game Pass)
Developer: Wolfeye Studios
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Released: March 31, 2022
MSRP: $39.99

Weird West is an immersive sim from Wolfeye Studios, and the debut project from a studio founded by former Arkane developers. Rather than a 3D first-person approach, Weird West looks further back. Its isometric viewpoint and overworld travel map reminded me right away of the first two Fallout games.

The setting of Weird West is going to be the main draw? because it is, simply, the weird west. Cowboys and bounty hunters clash with sirens and pigmen. Long-forgotten specters roam the land, haunting homesteads. A Spanish mission is occupied by werewolves.

Overlapping oddities with familiar western paraphernalia is a major appeal, and thankfully, it's not just skin deep. The bizarre world of the west manages to not feel like it's strange for strangeness' sake, but it's telling a story about average people ?tr?ying to make their way through an uncaring, even hostile world—the ugliness, and also the importance of our own empathy and care, even when the world doesn't naturally reciprocate it.

These tales are framed through five journeys, as the player is led through five different people getting by in the West. The first, about a retired bounty hunter seeking vengeance, is odd but straightforward. Yes, man-eating monsters are involved, but the bounty hunter relies on conventional tools of the trade. Her quests led me through the basics of living in the Weird West: the saloon, the gun store, the stables, and the bounty board, to name a few?.

I made a living, hunted down a few criminals, and eventual?ly managed to finish my quest. A post-conclusion screen showed me all the choices I made, with bullet points that indicated I could've taken it a few different ways. I even reloaded later, just to shake things up and see what changed; more on that in a moment.

Because when I started the second journ??ey, I was a pigman. A monster I had only heard about in missives and loading screen legends. With no memory of who I was before, I was now a monster made of man and pig flesh.

Stores didn't want me darkening their doorstep. Sheriffs warned me that I'd be ran out of town if they saw me walking around in daylight. My closest companion was a fellow monster. My means of getting resources and surviving had to shift, and fast. My method for making it in the Weird West was completely up-ended, and I loved it.

Weird West has many strengths, but it excels in those moments where narrative and gameplay overlap. Often I would feel like I was getting away with something, only to later feel like it was just another option laid out by Wolfeye for me to progress. Helping someone out might get me some key information, or I could just as easily steal it, or learn it through a note somewhere, or find it organically. ??Yes, those cracked rocks can be broken open with dynamite, or TNT barrels. And I could absolutely overcome terrible odds by summoning a tornado and lighting it on fire. At one point, I spent a long time trying to stack barrels and jump over a gate, only to realize I could've just shot the switch to open it from the other side.

Each of the journeys feels rewarding, because they each encourage their own approach. While some perks persist across characters, each new face has their own abilities to master using ancient relics. The pigman could use his power bar to make bullets bounce off his skin or execute a powerful charge through enemy ranks. The wa?rrior of the Lost Fire nat??ion, meanwhile, could summon the help of a ghost-bear. There is even a werewolf character, who felt like two characters combined into one.

The story is compelling too, even though it sometimes gets a bit messy. I really enjoyed the overall arc and the greater questions Weird West poses to the player, even though the last chapter felt weaker than the others. Individual story arcs like the pigman's were the most compelling, as were the sections that let me explore a world firsthand. Seeing how different characters approached this world, comparing factions like the futu??re-protecting Oneirists with the pious wolves, was engaging, and kept me locking into everything happening around me.

At times, I was impressed by how Weird West remembered my choices and carried their consequences through stories. Letting one outlaw escape led to headlines of rampant pillaging. But other times, it felt like they didn't translate one-to-one. A character who I left alive, for example, was later described as dead?? by another in dialogue. It was a minor ??hiccup, but a few times I noticed points where my decisions hadn't lined up perfectly with descriptions of the game world.

The main frustration with Weird West is in the glitches. Some are being addressed in a day-one patch, but there were enough that I made a habit of quick-saving very, very often. Sometime??s dialogues wouldn't trigger. And in general, stealth was finicky. Enemies would sometimes spot bodies I had ??left in bushes, where it seemed like they should've been fully hidden.

Weird West's isometric camera will also be a point of contention for some. As much as I appreciated the nostalgic feel and some of the clever use of foreground-background layou??ts, it was also difficult to make dist??ant objects out or line up long-range shots. Contextual abilities, like the slow-motion dodge roll, also take a little while to get used to.

Getting use?d to both the combat and stealth takes a moment because of that, though it also makes battles feel frantic in a good way early on. Panicking as a bear bears down on you feels about right, and the way that certain environmental factors can overlap and cause chain reactions lets the combat feel chaotic and c??onstantly evolving. Melee weapons always felt a little more awkward than the rest, but that's about the worst of it.

Though the world can feel opaque and daunting at first, Weird West does create an amazing front??ier to explore. It's a brisk journey from character one to character five, and I saw the credits roll at a little under 20 hours, but there's a lot to do if you just want to spend time in the world. Side quests and bounties provide a lot of extra objectives to pursue, and there's also the allure of seeing how some stories could pan out differently. I did kill some story-critical NPCs to see what happened, and yes, Wolfeye lets you do it and adjusts accordingly. Even the narrator, who is excellent and sets a perfect tone for the story, responds in shock to your actions. It's very good.

Weird West draws players in with its setting, and then builds a world that asks interesting?? questions about what they want from it. It's extremely nostalgic in ways, but also feels like it could kindle some fire for more exploration of these older styles of RPG. Ones where you need to comb over every inch of an area to scrounge supplies because your character made enemies with all the local towns, or gets caught up in an ambush because they were caught traveling alone without a posse to back them up.

Weird West presents a bizarre world to tell a story about real, human struggles. It might have some hitches and messiness, but it's a journey worth taking if you've ever been nostalgic a??bout the good ol' days. Or you just like the idea of charging into a group of enemies as an unstoppable fantasy monstrosity, shotgun barrels blazing, with electric western riffs ringing out in the distance. Saddle up, pigman. That's your cue.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Weird West appeared first on Destructoid.

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 clar??ify 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 anot??her big update. Character creation already includes selecting a background, but now, there will be small 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 chan?ges, like being able to break concentration and separating jump 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 pacifists 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 ex?citing to follow. I think next Tues?day 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, chec?k out our interview ?with Vincke from earlier this year.

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Goblins! Goblins! Goblins!

Maybe Dungeons & Dragons just isn't something that can be enjoyed ??without frie??nds.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance (PC [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X)
Developer: Tuque Games
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Released: June 22nd, 2021
MSRP: $39.99

To answer a question that some may have, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is a spiritual sequel to Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. While there are stark differences that make this one distinct from its two predecessors, the dropping of the Baldur’s Gate name probably has more to do with the upcoming Baldur’s Gate III and wanting to avoid confusion.

Otherwise, the idea’s the same: a more action-oriented take on the pen-and-paper RPG. It’s once again set in the Forgotten Realms campaign, this time using characters from the Legend of Drizzt series. It takes place soon after R. A. Salvatore’s pulp novel, The Crystal Shards.

For what that's worth, anyway. The plot isn’t exactly dense, involving a few factions getting their hands on mag??ic gewgaws that you don’t want them to have. Still, you get a chance to see some of D&D’s more prolific? characters in action. There’s Drizzt, Wulfgar, Catti-Brie, and Bruenor, each with their own powers, roles, moves, and loot.

The problems with playing single-player become apparent pretty quickly. The AI in Dark Alliance is absolutely daft. I spent most of my playtime as Catti-Brie (which was? probably a bad choice in retrospect) and was perfectly capable of standing on a ledge to soften up groups of enemies. They can’t work ledges, period. Rather than mull about trying to get to you, they just act like you’re not there while you take potshots. They’ll even continue conversations while you try to interrupt them by feeding arrows into their groin.

Not t?hat you even need to find ??a ledge to stand on. You can just go outside the rather tight range that enemies have and they’ll act like you aren’t even there anymore. They’ll just return to their neutral state. Then you can, once again, lob projectiles at their crotches until they fall over.

Or you could, you know, not cheese every encounter. It’s just really damned tempting. Even when I forced myself into direct combat, the enemies just aren’t that aggressive. There were many times where they just stood there as I lined my crosshairs up with their face or slashed up their friends. When they do attack, they’re simply predictable. Usually, the only way I’d die in combat was when I’d get trapped in a ?swarm of enemies. Other times, I had the difficulty too h??igh and someone would lay me flat with a single swing.

Playing solo is just a drag. The characters prattle on the worst one-liners, and the story isn’t much to speak about. The fights are repetitive and slow, and the difficulty is all ove?r the place. Looting is fine. It’s one of those things in video games that never really gets old, but it will only car?ry you so far.

I’m just not digging Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance right now. It feels rickety at best and annoying at worst. Monotonous, bland, uninteresting. However, I know that multi-player can offset some of the problems I had. I wouldn’t judge Left 4 Dead or Gauntlet based on their single-player, so it seems unfair to set my criticism in stone until I’ve sampled what Dark Alliance can offer. I’m not hopeful, but it’s worth giving it that chance. Though, if you were planning to be a solo ??adventurer, maybe reconsider.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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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 different combat system, a more cinematic approach, and is firmly rooted in the old tomes of D?ungeons & 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 foun?der 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 Reddit, 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 st?ill developing—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 look 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 concept Vincke says Larian won't be implementing.

In other places, the studio i?s 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 of du?rability 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 pseudo-RNG system that will try to balance out all those one-rolls you keep getting. I??t'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 somewhere 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 y??ou 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 he??lps the studio identify what pla??yers 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 ca?ll 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 dialogue 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 w?hile there have been updates adding new content, including a new class for players to pick in character creation, there's still a frag??ile 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 j??ust work with all that feedback and then just release it at the end of the exercise," Vincke sa??ys. "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 impression 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 its testing ground for QA. The Early Access is there for community feedback on systems, systems that are present there and will ??be throughout the rest of the game.

That reasoning h??elps give context to why the Druid was the next class in line 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 Access 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 with what you can d?o with Wild Shape."

Vincke says that Larian has ambitions, still, for what it's going to add. Druid provides a very different experience compared to the other cla??sses, so it's an interesting question mark to addr??ess now, rather than later.

"So we're not going to necessarily put the classes that are easiest to make first into [Early Access], we're putting the ones that are interesting f??or us also, to see what the community does with it," Vincke 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 sense, but even that is tricky. Not every path has a natural climax, so Larian had to find cut??s 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 cause right now, there are a number of fascinating characters: the enigmatic Shadowheart, the intriguing Asta??rion, and the fairly direct Lae'zel, to name a few.

The player fights alongside them during the day, but upon ret??urning 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 o?pinion, especially 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 fr??om 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 also parts we haven't seen yet; signific??ant 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 Vincke 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 happy 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 ingenu?ity 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 mechanics 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 h?as not been immune to the effects of the global pandemic. The team made 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 previo?us Larian 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 Gat??e" 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 compromised on the amount of choice it offers to players in the game.

When I asked 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 th??em 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'l?l ??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 ??think I've already seen and know it. That's not what Larian is planning on.

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

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