Looking Back on the Last Three Years of Early Access With Baldur’s Gate 3

It’s finally here! The recent countdown and fanfare for the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3 has been so exciting to take part in, I almost forgot how long I’ve been following this game. It’s been surreal seeing so much contemporary fanfare for such a phenomenal game, after spending so many years wondering if we’ll ever get a chance to leave the first Act and explore all of Faerûn.

Now that the release is finally upon us, and my own copy of the game is in the process of downloading (wild! Absolutely wild!), I find myself getting nostalgic for the last three years. A lot has happened, not even related to the game itself, yet the game has been an anchor I wasn’t even conscious of until now.

So, as we all gear up to properly slip into Baldur’s Gate 3, let’s take a trip down memory lane, and reflect on how far we’ve come with this (big) little game.

Of COVID and kobolds

College for me was an adventure in and of itself, so when COVID-19 struck and we were all forced to move back in with our parents, I was definitely thrown into limbo for a while. For those first few months, I aimlessly waited to hear what would develop with quarantine. In hindsight, perhaps it was foolish that we thought it might “just blow over” by the end of the summer. Summer came and went, and I was still no further from my childhood bedroom than I was way back in March.

I started getting into old high school habits, trolling the internet constantly while finishing up my last work contract and (anxiously) looking for work afterward. It was while doing such trolling that, on the Dragon Age subreddit, I saw someone mention how good Baldur’s Gate 3 was, and how it reminded them of that good feeling we all felt when we first booted up Dragon Age: Origins.

At that point, I wasn’t super familiar with Larian Studios, having only played a bit of the Divinity days when I was a kid. I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially not from an early access game. But I was bored and had money saved that wasn’t getting spent, so I took a chance on it.

Immediately, I saw what all the fuss was about. I knew this was going to be a great game.

Related: Best Diablo Games of All Time, Ranked on Twinfinite

Rest in pi, Google Stadia

Let’s take a moment to briefly thank Google Stadia for its contributions to this effort. I didn’t have a gaming PC back then, so my only options were to either kill my work laptop to run such a mammoth game, or just download Stadia.

Back in the day, Stadia allowed you one free game per new user, so I naturally chose Baldurs Gate 3, and was thus spared from the $60 price tag.

Provided I had a decent internet connection, Stadia ran the game flawlessly. All of my initial characters and playthroughs were on that platform, so even though I did properly buy the game on Steam and switched over once I had a better computer, I’m still a little sad that all that data’s lost.

Thank you Stadia, you weird little thing.

Growth of a game

The game we have now is immensely polished, which isn’t to say the first few iterations of it weren’t, but the markup is noticeable for old heads like me. BG3 was always beautiful to look at, but its initial patches were more plastic-y. Faces weren’t as expressive, movements weren’t so fluid, and the UI was much more utilitarian. Every update they’ve made thus far has touched upon the cosmetics in every way that’s undoubtedly more approachable—yet all the same, I’m nostalgic for the days when Shadowheart rarely used her smiling animation.

The characters also look quite different, namely Gale and Karlach. The former used to just look like an everyman, undistinguishable from that guy you took an upper-level philosophy class with:

And in many ways, this is the Gale that feels the most “right” to me, because he’s who I got the most used to. The new Gale is, by all means, more attractive, with more defined features, greying hair, and an earring, to boot:

But these changes are minimal compared to Karlach, who’s a certified Baddie now. Karlach is tall, powerful, and striking to behold—quite a far cry from her very first iteration, which was just a normal Tiefling you couldn’t pick out from a crowd:

Other characters, of course, got some glow-ups, but these two feel the most worth mentioning, as they’ll be integral to our adventures.

Also joining their ranks will be Halsin, the druid leader of Silvanus’ Grove, and the infamous “bear man” you’ve seen floating around Twitter. Believe it or not, he wasn’t actually a romance for a very long time; we had no idea he’d even be added as a romance until this most recent dev panel! For years, I watched as fans pined and salivated over this big, beefy elf, and oh, the fanart, it was everywhere:

Truly, I’ve watched this game grow from a promising, beautiful, yet buggy hodgepodge, into something that easily rivals even my absolute favorite RPGs of all time. Seeing the tangible progress over time, and how Larian has taken player feedback into account, gives me a lot of hope, not just for the game, but for all games of its genre for the next decade.

Thank you, Larian!

Baldur’s Gate 3 was a surprising rock during my COVID years, and while I was getting started as a working professional. It saw me through unemployment, bad employment, breakups, bad dates, new relationships, and new, daunting experiences. It helped me form closer bonds with new friends and always promised something more to come.

This game will always mean a lot to me, and I say this having not even booted up the full game yet! But now, as it’s finally been downloaded, I think it’s finally time to say my grateful farewells to Early Access and get started with proper adventuring along the Sword Coast.

So thank you Larian for this beautiful game, and all the great experiences we’ve had with it already!

(Featured Image: Larian Studios)