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 Studio’s newest Baldur’s Gate 3 breaks down the game’s cinematic ambitions for early access, which begins on September 30. It also introduces more interactivity through Stadia Crowd Choice and Twitch integration. A huge leap from Divinity: Original Sin’s rock-paper-scissors multiplayer interactions, Baldur’s Gate 3 features 1.5 million words, with fully cinematic dialogues.

Using a mix of performance capture and bespoke adaptive cameras, the game is able to react to whoever you are and whatever you do, both in multiplayer and single-player. With the addition of streaming integration, even viewers who may not own the game now have a say in the player’s journey.

Larian’s Cinematic Director, Jason Latino, explains, “You’re telling your story, and we’re shooting it for you. We’re taking that camera down from being above the players and down into the drama, right into the action.

“I can’t think of another early access game that’s done cinematics on this level,” he added. “There’s a lot of games where the moment you add cinematics, they have to get smaller. We didn’t want to do that.”

Community Update #6 - Multiplayer & Cinematics goes into detail about how Larian is combining a cinematic, player-driven narrative through early access, with multiplayer interactions both within and outside of the game session. It shows how far the team has come since Divinity: Original Sin, back in 2014.

When enabled by a streamer, Crowd Choice brings the journey to YouTube viewers, where Stadia viewers can vote. The streamer is seamlessly presented with the results in percentages, and can then choose to follow the players, or go their own way.

Twitch integration works by numbering each dialogue option, which corresponds to viewer choices. This feedback is seamlessly integrated into the game, where both streamer and viewer will see each percentage vote next to each dialogue option. What’s more, players will be able to interact with the Twitch overlay to access the player’s inventory, character sheet, skills, and spells.

Both of these features are launching day one of early access, respectively, on PC and Stadia. This not only brings the community closer to the player, but also, due to the amount of permutations in dialogues, enables streamers to “DM” their own adventure for viewers, letting viewers partake in the story regardless of whether they own the game. Players will be able to become a part of their favorite streamer’s own private canon. Or, as a streamer or viewer, hide the feature entirely. It’s up to them. As always, the game reacts appropriately.

Early access is rapidly approaching, and Larian is happy to launch with nearly everything needed to give players a sense of the ambition behind Baldur’s Gate 3. Dialogues have more permutations than ever before, and so too does the game. Not only does the game retain the narration previous Larian titles are so well known for, you’ll often see that action on screen -- whether it’s a vampiric bite in the night, or a slip of the tongue on a goblin’s foot. Of course, there are many more for players to discover on their own.

Whether in solo, with friends -- or streaming with an audience -- no matter how you choose to experience Baldur’s Gate 3, the tools and systems that allow the game to adapt to the story forged by players are ready for early access on September 30.

 

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!

Larian Studios is developing and publishing Baldur’s Gate III on PC and Google Stadia.