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.

Initially planned for August 2020, then delayed until September 30, Larian Studios has pushed back the early access release date for Baldur’s Gate III by a week, now set for October 6, 2020.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game with a world that reacts to your choices. The decisions you make in dialogue, and also in combat or exploring the world, have consequences in both the long and short-term, shaping your unique story.

The same is true for your party. Each of your companions has their own personality, goals and motivations. Bound by the shared problem of an Illithid tadpole buried in their head, they will join your party, but you’ll all have to put your differences aside if you want to survive. The exact relationship you have with your companions, already marred by differences, will be shaped by who you are, what you do, who you side with, and what you say in conversation with them.

Larian has created reactive systems all throughout the journey of a relationship: from the time of meeting a companion to the potential romance with them, there are hundreds of permutations that define where a relationship heads, if anywhere at all. These systems have been designed to create the most intimate, authentic and reactive relationships ever seen in a Larian RPG.

In Baldur’s Gate 3, a 5e D&D game, creating a custom character will immerse you in the story just as much as playing as one of the Origin Characters. For example, playing as a Drow wizard will give you different dialogue options than playing as a Githyanki warlock. These differences will also be present in your relationship dialogues. As you play the game and begin to make choices in combat, exploration, and conversation, you’ll be presented with situations and scenarios that are unique to your playthrough. Not too long into early access, you’ll be having an adventure so specific to your character that no other player is going to see the exact same content.

The sum of a character is determined by many factors, and continues to be shaped by your actions and reactions to the world, as well as the party you journey with. Frictions may test the party’s resolve, and romances might test the party dynamic. Not only will characters have opinions about you, but also about each other, plus other factions in the game. Will you pursue love with one companion to the detriment of another? Or will you side with a faction a companion detests, putting feelings to the side to achieve your strategic goals? As with life, many decisions will have to be made, not all of them easy, and not every outcome obvious.

After a long day’s journey, you will end the day at your camp. Though you can interact with your companions at any time in the world, it’s at the camp where a lot of the most intimate thoughts and feelings come into play. It’s where the party lays down their weapons and talks at their most vulnerable, all through cinematic dialogues. Through a mix of systems design, narrative writing, and cinematics, Larian is aiming to create three-dimensional relationships that feel as authentic as possible.

“At the end of the day, this remains a D&D game, and the most important character in a game of D&D is you,” said Sarah Baylus, lead writer at Larian Studios.

Each companion has been created to feel authentic, with clear motivations, differences and views on the world around them. For example, Lae’zel, a Githyanki warrior who trained her entire life to fight Mind Flayers, will approach intimacy very differently than Asterion, a vampire spawn who lured and seduced victims for his master.

Baylus explained, “It really comes down to each individual character. There is no overarching design about how a character should react. It’s really organic and about what makes sense for them.

“We are trying to make these relationships feel real and feel like the relationships you have in the real world. You will meet some people who you have nothing in common with, some will be useful to work together, but that is going to be the extent of it. But there could be situations where you get on really well, you share similar goals and you love travelling together.

“We want these relationships to feel like they would in the real world, like you are falling in love with someone, or you are falling in like with someone, or you just feel attracted to someone. That should all feel real and authentic.”

We made it this far without saying sex, but, we know you want to know, so: yes, you can have sex in the game. Of course.

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.