You are burdened with a great power devouring you from within.
How far down the path of darkness will you let it take you?
The fate of Faerûn is on your party’s shoulders.
Will you carry it to salvation, or descend with it to hell?

Created in close collaboration with the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards of the Coast, Baldur’s Gate III is based off current D&D mechanics and spells and is the official new chapter in the legendary series.

Baldur’s Gate III will push the boundaries of the RPG genre and offer a rich narrative with unparalleled player freedom, high-stakes decisions, unique companion characters and memorable combat. It is Larian Studios’ biggest production ever and will be playable together with friends or as a single-player adventure.

Alone you may resist, but together you can overcome. Gather your party.

Forged with the new Divinity 4.0 engine and coming to early access later this year, Baldur’s Gate 3 gives you unprecedented freedom to explore, experiment, and interact with a world that truly reacts to your choices. A grand, cinematic narrative brings you closer to your characters than ever before as you venture through the Forgotten Realms of Dungeons & Dragons in Larian’s biggest adventure yet.

Larian Studios' final Panel From Hell dives deep into everything from a customizable serial killer protagonist, to the importance of character identity, to the ability to wildshape into a dinosaur.

The Dark Urge

Over the past three weeks, Larian has left a breadcrumb trail of clues leading to the reveal of their final playable Origin character in the community-driven murder mystery Blood in Baldur’s Gate. While the community was ultimately murdered themselves, their last waking moments revealed their brutal killer and his mysterious companion: their murderer is the final playable Origin hero Dark Urge, by default an imposing dragonborn with alabaster skin and eyes that glare with the piercing gaze of a predator.

Unlike Baldur’s Gate 3’s other playable protagonists (Origins), the Dark Urge is a fully customizable character. Their class, appearance, species and gender are completely up to you – after all, evil can reside within anyone, irrespective of how they appear.

Stepping into the role of the Dark Urge, you’ll begin Baldur’s Gate 3 with your memory lost after an unfortunate encounter between a parasitic tadpole and your brain. Now all that’s left is an insatiable urge – an urge that makes itself known in your subconscious, through your deepest thoughts and in your dialogue options.

Followers of Blood in Baldur’s Gate will already be familiar with the Dark Urge’s simple but effective modus operandi: to murder brutally and indiscriminately. Driven to commit some of the most lurid acts of violence that you'll encounter in the game, to play as the Dark Urge means to either indulge your most depraved impulses or attempt to resist them.

The Dark Urge is guided by Sceleritas Fel, voiced by Brian Bowles (narrator in Divinity: Original Sin 2). Fel is a vile and loyal servant who lives only to see the Dark Urge return to its rightful, bloodstained path. His words of encouragement are like a poison in your mind, fueling your impulses – but it’s a poison that tastes like honey, if you’re so inclined.

Despite your impulses as the Dark Urge, you are still a member of an adventuring party facing an arduous journey to Baldur’s Gate. Your party, in spite of your urges, will do its best to be there for you. For those party members you grow closest to, you can still form relationships and romances – but how they manifest compared to the others, however, is a tale only you can tell.

Orin the Red

Following earlier reveals of Lord Enver Gortash (Jason Isaacs) and General Ketheric Thorm (J.K. Simmons) as two of Baldur’s Gate 3’s central antagonists, today’s stream sees the reveal of the third and final antagonist: Orin the Red (Maggie Robertson), a shapeshifting murderess with the goal of painting the city of Baldur’s Gate in blood.

You’ll meet Orin soon enough, but how and when will be up to her.

Character Creation

Character identity is at the center of Baldur’s Gate 3, and its character creator allows customization of everything from your protagonist’s appearance to their stats and background – whether your protagonist be hero, villain, or Ed Sharran, a simple bard traveling the roads of Faerûn with his trusty lute and a barely-concealed inner darkness that gnaws and festers, demanding release – the character creator provides a lot of room for expression.

At launch, players will get to experiment with even more ways to create diverse, personalized characters:

• New skin options like freckles, vitiligo, scars
• New tattoo designs
• Heterochromia
• Lip makeup customization
• Accessories like earrings and piercings
• Horn color customization for Tieflings

Adventurers need not be slim or youthful – the addition of an age slider will allow you to create an older protagonist, and strong body types allow for larger body sizes across all genders.

Romance

“Have you ever considered the joys and pleasures of sexual congress with a wildshaped Druid?” asked Adam Smith, lead writer. “Because at Larian, we have, and ultimately landed on the side of giving the people what they want: tender, consensual romance with a man temporarily transformed into a grizzly bear.”

Baldur’s Gate 3 offers ample opportunities for romance with the characters you’ll grow closest with, and no two relationships follow the same formula. Emotional intimacy with one party member may slowly bud into mutual physical desire with one party member, while a relationship that begins with a night of post-Goblin-slaughtering passion could also blossom into something vulnerable and sweet, given proper care.

Today’s Panel From Hell introduces players to a few romantic potentialities, but there’s no shortage of relationships to explore and allies to smooch when Baldur’s Gate 3 releases.

Gather your party for a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power. Abducted, infected, lost... You are turning into a monster, drawn from a Mind Flayer parasite planted in your brain, but as the 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 devils, deities, and sinister otherworldly forces, you will determine the fate of the Forgotten Realms together. Resist and turn darkness against itself — or embrace corruption and become the ultimate evil.

Choose from a wide selection of D&D races and classes, or play as an origin character with a hand-crafted background. Play alone, selecting your companions carefully, or as a party of up to four in online multiplayer.

No two adventures will ever be the same. The Forgotten Realms are a vast, detailed and diverse world, and there are secrets to be discovered all around you -- even verticality is a vital part of exploration. Adventure, loot, battle, romance… how you survive, and the mark you leave on the world, is up to you.

Key Features

• Online multiplayer for up to four players allows you to combine your forces in combat and split your party to follow your own quests and agendas. Devise the perfect plan together… or introduce an element of chaos when your friends least expect it.
• Origin characters offer a hand-crafted experience, each with their own unique traits, agenda, and outlook on the world. Their stories intersect with the wider narrative, and your choices will determine whether those stories end in redemption, salvation, domination or other outcomes.
• Evolved turn-based combat based on the D&D 5E ruleset. Team-based initiative, advantage and disadvantage, and roll modifiers join combat cameras, expanded environmental interactions, and a new fluidity in combat that rewards strategy and foresight.
• Define the future of the Forgotten Realms through your choices and the roll of the dice. No matter who you play or what you roll, the world and its inhabitants will react to your story.
• Player-initiated turn-based mode allows you to pause the world around you at any time even outside of combat. See an opportunity for a tactical advantage before combat begins? Want to pull off a heist with pin-point precision? Need to escape a fiendish trap? Split your party, prepare ambushes, sneak in the darkness — and create your own luck!

Baldur’s Gate III is coming to PC on August 3rd, followed by PS5 on September 6, 2023.