Wondering if you’ll be able to squeeze in a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 before Starfield comes out? Be warned: one run takes on average 75 to 100 hours, developer Larian has said.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a sprawling open-ended role-playing game from the makers of the Divinity: Original Sin series. Larian announced it had brought the PC version release date forward a month, from August 31 to August 3, in order to avoid a clash with the likes of Bethesda’s upcoming behemoth Starfield in early September. The PlayStation 5 version, meanwhile, is delayed slightly to September 6, and the Xbox Series X and S versions are without a release window (more on Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox hold-up here).
Speaking to IGN, Larian boss Swen Vincke said the developer is seeing a standard playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 take 75 to 100 hours. However, players who want to “do everything” should expect to double that figure.
“Between 75 and 100 hours, that's what we're seeing,” Vincke said. “That's not doing everything, that is just going to be a playthrough. There will be people who will be way over that, the ones who want to do everything. They will probably hit 200 hours, I think. On average we're seeing people who are going through take about 75 to 100 hours.”
"There will be people who will be way over that, the ones who want to do everything. They will probably hit 200 hours."
Vincke pointed out, however, that Larian expects to see different playstyles upon Baldur’s Gate 3’s release. Those who play the game in multiplayer, for example, may take over a year to finish the game as they organise regular sessions with friends.
“There are multiple ways of playing it, right?” Vincke said. “We saw that with [Divinity: Original Sin 2] and it will be no different here. People who are going to be playing in multiplayer, they'll take a year, a year-and-a-half. They will make their regular sessions where they play, like D&D.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 is divided up into discreet chunks by big transitions that move players from chapter to chapter, much like in the original Baldur’s Gate. These transition points provide natural stop / start moments for players who may fancy giving Baldur’s Gate 3 a rest in favour of another game.
“There will be moments where you can say, ‘you know what? I'll stop here and try something else,’ and then I'll pick it up again. It's big enough,” Vincke said.
Even after a playthrough is complete, players may feel compelled to re-roll due to the nature of Baldur’s Gate 3 itself, Vincke suggested.
“It has an enormous amount of replay because there are so many ways to do things,” Vincke said. “I think people will re-roll a lot. We have this insane amount of classes, sub-classes, races, sub-races. This is not a small game you're going to be done with in a month. You will be playing it in bits and chunks. Maybe you will drop in with a friend in multiplayer - we have drop-in / drop-out multiplayer also. There are so many ways of playing it.
“We saw with [Divinity: Original Sin 2] also, people played it for years. There are still quite a lot of people playing DOS2, still discovering new things that are in there. This one is significantly bigger, with significantly more layers of depth to it also.
“I don't think you'll be done in a month, is what I'm saying.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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