Tag: Larian Studios

A ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Writer Explains Wyll’s Disappointing Arc

[ad_1]

Those who’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 love the characters, and if there’s one common observation made about them, it’s that Wyll Ravengard feels underdeveloped. Compared to others like Astarion and Karlach, his personal story has come across as lacking after his debut in the Early Access build, and that sentiment further grew when Larian made several post-launch updates to the game’s ending and epilogue, where he seemed to get the short end of the stick.

On Friday, several Larian developers conducted a Reddit AMA, where senior writer Kevin VanOrd acknowledged Wyll having “sparser” content than he’d have preferred, saying he was “split into two stories” between his infernal patron Mizora and the Ravengards. The team wasn’t really feeling his quest and recruiting in the initial Early Access version and opted to start over. Unfortunately, a lot of where Wyll ends up in the final version of Baldur’s Gate 3 came to “less than ideal” circumstances owing to coming late in development.

When Larian restarted him, the personal stories for most of the core cast were “fairly solid,” and much of where he ends up in the final version of Baldur’s Gate 3 came late in development. One example VanOrd cited was a “key situation” at Baldur’s Gate meant to feature Wyll prominently in the Red War College, which then got cut. That eventually led to him being the son of Duke Ravengard, which the writer then developed shortly before getting sick, and then again after the epilogue came out.

As for the Wyrmway, a sub-quest for Wyll gained after saving Ulder Ravengard (or if Wyll breaks his pact with Mizora), VanOrd said the team had resources for a standalone dungeon and opted to tie it to him. The writer said he “couldn’t get more than a dungeon boss” out of the location and that he had to start writing once the encounters were in place.

VanOrd went on to call it a “mistake in hindsight” to divide Wyll’s arc like that, but he’s still immensely proud of what was done with the character—in particular his “sincerity, good nature, and eager heroism.” And he wishes the Blade of the Frontiers could’ve had a more satisfying ending, something the character’s fans have already done on their own time.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

[ad_2]

Justin Carter

Source link

January 10, 2026
Don’t count on Baldur’s Gate 3 coming to Switch 2, as least for now

[ad_1]

Nintendo Switch 2 owners can forget about seeing Baldur’s Gate 3 in the Nintendo Store, at least as of now. In a Reddit AMA, Larian Studio’s CEO, Swen Vicke, said that the team would have loved to bring the title to Switch 2, but “it wasn’t our decision to make.”

As cryptic as that may sound, Vicke’s response hints that either Wizards of the Coast, which owns the Dungeons and Dragons IP that Baldur’s Gate 3 is set in, or Nintendo is behind the lack of a port. When it comes to Wizards of the Coast, rumors have circulated that the game studio and Wizards of the Coast may have a strained relationship. On the other hand, Larian Studios’ technical director, Bert van Semmertier, revealed in a response to another AMA question that the studio just released Divinity: Original Sin 2 on the Switch 2, adding that “we love the platform and we will certainly consider Switch 2 for the next Divinity game.”

There’s still a chance that Wizards of the Coast decides to hire another studio to pursue a port in the future, but there’s been no indication yet. As for why Larian Studios won’t be behind a potential Switch 2 port, the developer said in a statement last year that it would no longer develop any major content updates or expansions for Baldur’s Gate 3, nor work on a sequel.

[ad_2]

Jackson Chen

Source link

January 10, 2026
Everything We Know About Divinity, The Big New RPG From Larian

[ad_1]

Divinity was one of the biggest reveals at the Game Awards 2025. Hell, there was an entire demonic statue sitting in the desert for over a week to get people hyped. Actors were paid to sit in the front row of the showcase and get lifted into the air on pulleys to introduce the game’s first trailer. But what is it and why should you care? Here’s the little we know so far about Larian Studios’ next major RPG.

What is Divinity?

It’s a new game from Larian Studios, most famous for the acclaimed 2023 hit RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. Like that one, Divinity is also an RPG. Unlike that one, Divinity takes place in Larian’s own made-up fantasy universe instead of Dungeons & Dragons‘ Forgotten Realms. Larian’s land of Rivellon is still inhabited by humans, elves, dwarves, and so on, though it has some peoples you won’t find in BG3 too, and it still revolves around magic and demonic forces, but there are seven gods and more religious overtones. It started in 2002 with the studio’s first fantasy RPG, Divine Divinity.

“The gods are silent. Rivellon bleeds. New powers stir.” That’s the tagline for the new Divinity, which Larian promises will be its “most ambitious title yet” and even larger than Baldur’s Gate 3. It was revealed at The Game Awards 2025 with a massive statue and a gnarly cinematic trailer that suggests the world of Divinity may be on the verge of succumbing to some truly wicked hellspawn.

Wait, is this Divinity: Original Sin 3?

No, it ain’t. While fans of that turn-based sub-series would love to see Larian go back to that solid foundation, the company’s head of publishing was very clear that this isn’t a direct sequel. “There aren’t currently any plans for a new Divinity Original Sin 3 game but once we are ready to show what we’ve been working on we will,” Michael Douse wrote on X prior to Divinity‘s announcement. But Larian did name-check both Original Sin games in its press release, saying fans of those will have a better understanding of this new game’s world.

Here’s how director Swen Vincke put it in the announcement: “Despite our long history with the series, this is our first game entitled ‘Divinity.’ We’re ready to bring everything we’ve done previously into one place. This marks the beginning of something with more breadth, depth, and intimacy than anything we’ve created before. We’ve been building toward this moment ever since we took our fate into our own hands. This is the Divinity we’ve always wanted to make and you’re going to have loads of fun with it.”

Will Divinity be turn-based?

That’s one of the great debates raging among fans as alleged rumors circulate that Divinity might not be turn-based. That would be a big departure from Larian’s last decade of projects which have all been that way. Back in the beginning, however, the Divinity franchise was a real-time action series that played like Diablo. It’s not hard to see Larian going back to that, especially if Divinity is operating on a grander scale than past projects. Maybe it’ll be third-person action more in the vein of modern Dragon Age? Still, the studio has a history of sticking to what works and iterating from there. If I had to bet money, I’d say it’s probably still turn-based.

Is that old guy getting Wicker Man’d in the trailer important?

Larian Studios

Probably! Fans on the Divinity subreddit have been debating who it might be. One theory is that it’s a character called Lucian who’s the canonical hero for the original Divine Divinity, eventually getting godly powers and being worshiped. He also adopts a child named Damian who ends up being a vessel for demonic entities. Here’s one fan’s theory:

“The implication of this trailer seems to be that the people of Rivellon stopped worshipping the dead gods and committed, besides the seven deadly sins, the Original Sin of killing the powerless Lucian, which causes the Hellstone to spawn, as the last remnants of the gods and Source were destroyed that way.”

Much of this interpretation depends on where in the existing timeline the new Divinity takes place. Is it after Original Sin 2 or a prequel to the entire franchise? Or maybe somewhere in the middle? Whoever is being tortured in the game’s first trailer, it seems clear that all is not well in Rivellon and the demons are coming to take over.

When is Divinity coming out?

There’s no release date yet. Not even a release window or a whisper of one. Divinity: Original Sin II was made in three years. Baldur’s Gate 3 took six. A lot will depend on whether this is the only game Larian has in production or it’s working on something else alongside it. Either way, we probably won’t see it out in the wild until 2027 or beyond.

What platforms will Divinity launch on?

PC seems like a safe bet. Maybe even an Early Access launch like Larian did with Baldur’s Gate 3. It could be far enough away to be a cross-gen console release on both PlayStation 5 and PS6. Same for Xbox. Hopefully it runs well on PC handhelds and Valve’s Steam Machine. Maybe it’ll even come to Switch 2? Larian’s only other game to launch on a Nintendo platform was Divinity: Original Sin II.

[ad_2]

Ethan Gach

Source link

December 12, 2025
Stardew Valley’s Big Patch, An Apex Legends Hack, And More Of The Week’s Gaming News

[ad_1]

Image: ConcernedApe, Blizzard Entertainment, Larian Studios, Respawn, Concerned Ape, Insomniac Games / Marvel / Hasbro / Scopely / Kotaku, Flying Wild Hog, Screenshot: Morgpie / Twitch / Kotaku, Larian Studios / Kotaku

This week, one of the biggest stories in gaming involved updates to an eight-year-old game. Yes, Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe trickled out a series of details about the game’s latest patch that had fans hanging on every word in anticipation. We’ve got all the facts for you about this game-changing update, as well as a report on Overwatch 2‘s once-vaunted story missions, a story on the motivations behind an Apex Legends hack, and more.

[ad_2]

Kotaku Staff

Source link

March 23, 2024
Tetris Conquered, Star Wars Outlaws and More Of The Week's Biggest Gaming News

[ad_1]

Think the first week of January is a slow one for news? Think again. A 13-year-old Tetris phenom has boldly gone where no one has gone before, beating the NES version of the classic puzzler by reaching a “kill screen” on level 157. Steam announced the occasionally baffling results of its annual players’ choice awards, and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall got a free-to-play, fan-made remaster.

Three Things We Learned From The Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo

Bethesda’s Biggest Game Ever Is Free And Remastered

Screenshot: Daggerfall Unity

Before Starfield, before Skyrim, before Fallout 3 and Oblivion, before your parents even knew how to make you, there was The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It was, and remains, Bethesda’s biggest-ever game, and now a fan-made rebuilding of the entire vast world in Unity has reached its 1.0 release. Oh, and it’s entirely free, and won’t be destroyed by lawyers! This new Daggerfall is an almighty achievement, and exactly the excuse you needed to return to Tamriel. – John Walker Read More

So, Uh, What’s Up With The Steam Awards?

Image: Valve / Rockstar Games / Bethesda / Kotaku

The results of 2023’s Steam Awards are in. Each year, Steam turns to the community to vote on the year’s best games across a wide variety of categories. This year saw Larian Studios’ RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 grab game of the year, while Lethal Company, a first-person cooperative horror game, got the “Better With Friends Award” for its co-op gameplay. The Last of Us Part I snagged Best Soundtrack, which seems odd because it came out in 2013, but it technically wasn’t added to Steam until 2023. – Claire Jackson Read More

Horror Game Studio Shuts Down Due To Cyberattacks, Poor Sales

Image: Jukai Studio

Just two months after the third-person action-horror game Stray Souls came out, developer Jukai Studio abruptly shuttered its doors, citing myriad issues including poor game sales and multiple cyberattacks from an unknown perpetrator.The developer took to X/Twitter on December 22 to announce the sudden closure. Part of the problem, Jukai Studio said, was Stray Souls’ abysmal reception and sales, which made the team “completely unable to sustain the company.” – Levi Winslow Read More

Three Decades Later, Someone Has Finally Beaten Tetris On NES

Image: Atari Games

Classic puzzle game Tetris has been around for over three decades, and in that time, plenty of people have reached its various endings, usually by clearing four rows of bricks at once like a digital demolitioner. That’s a challenge in and of itself, but now, someone has taken the concept of “beating Tetris” to the extreme by playing the NES game so hard it straight-up crashed, a phenomenon also known as the “kill screen.” – Levi Winslow Read More

Star Citizen’s ‘Everything Pack’ Costs $48,000

Image: RSI / Fox / Disney / Kotaku

Forever-in-development space sim Star Citizen might not be finished after over a decade of dev work and announcements, but it does already contain a lot of expensive ships you can buy and fly around in. And if you want all of those ships in one big DLC pack, Star Citizen has an option for you. Just be prepared to spend over $48,000. – Zack Zwiezen Read More

Baldur’s Gate 3 Contains A Beautiful Tribute You’ll See Through Misted Eyes

Screenshot: Andrea Gatta / X

Here’s something unironically wonderful. Via a post by Larian Studios writer Rachel Quirke, we’ve just learned of a deeply moving tribute to a player’s father that appears in the studios’ award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. In October 2020, a member of the Larian forums posted to thank the developer for releasing the first act of the game in Early Access, because it allowed them to enjoy one last adventure with their father, who had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. – John Walker Read More

Ubisoft Swiftly Corrects Star Wars Outlaws ‘Late 2024’ Release Window

Screenshot: Ubisoft Massive Entertainment / Kotaku

Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s upcoming action-adventure game that follows scoundrel Kay Vess between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, previously had no release date beyond a very broad “2024” window. Today, however, a Disney Parks blog post quietly announced that it would launch in “late 2024.” This didn’t last long, as Ubisoft promptly swooped in to correct the record and re-assert the general 2024 timeframe. – Levi Winslow Read More

Fan-Revived MMO Given Official License To Continue

Image: NCSoft

City of Heroes was a beloved MMORPG that launched in April 2004 and lasted just over eight years. In that time it won a dedicated community of players who, even after the game died, kept playing the MMO via private servers that existed in a weird legal gray area. But now, the developers behind City of Heroes have given one private server the official thumbs-up to keep on keeping on. – Zack Zwiezen Read More

Baldur’s Gate 3 Actors Share Their Most-Flubbed Lines

Baldur’s Gate 3 Actors Share Their Most-Flubbed Lines

The second part of our interview with Baldur’s Gate 3 actresses Devora Wilde and Jennifer English

Baldur’s Gate 3 Actors: Intimacy Coordinators Should Be ‘Industry Standard’

Baldur’s Gate 3 Actors: Intimacy Coordinators Should Be ‘Industry Standard’

The first part of our interview with Baldur’s Gate 3 actresses Devora Wilde and Jennifer English

[ad_2]

Kotaku Staff

Source link

January 6, 2024
5 Baldur's Gate 3 Gift Ideas for the Faerun Fan in Your Life

[ad_1]

Whelp, it’s official: Baldur’s Gate 3 is the game of the year, and you’ve likely got a super fan in your life who would appreciate some merch tied to the game this holiday season.

Luckily for you, we’ve got a plethora of suggestions that can make for great stocking stuffers and big gifts alike.

Silly & Serious Character Stickers

Price Range: $5.00 — $15.00

Image Credit: GeekALotl and Larian Studios via Etsy

Need to nab a cute little gift as fast as possible? The wide array of Baldur’s Gate 3 character stickers available on Etsy should do the trick nicely.

Ranging from simple portraits of the characters to silly and cute caricatures of everyone from Lae’zel to Scratch, these simple signs of fandom will put a smile on even the grumpiest super-fan’s face. We’re especially big fans of GeekALotl’s Best Bois sticker, which pays homage to the best heckin’ pets of 2023.

Party Member Plushies

Price Range: $9.99 — $27.99

Image Credit: XingyueShop and Larian Studios via Amazon

Simple yet effective, the plushies of the core party members from Baldur’s Gate 3 are a quick and easy way to show your loved ones you care.

Available in both simple designs and in more obscure outfits, these stuffed stocking stuffers will fill that space on someone’s bed or shelf perfectly. Not only that, but they’re readily stocked through Amazon and Cossky, meaning they’re a great option if you’re racing to find a last-minute gift. Hop on these while there’s still time, and you’ll score massive brownie points from your favorite fan of Faerun.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Clothes & Apparel

Price Range: $24.99 — $49.99

Image Credit: IGN and Larian Studios

Is your special someone lacking in clothes that show off their love for a specific party member? Does your friend need a shirt or hoody that lets everyone know they’re an Astarion fan for life?

Look no further than the slew of apparel available for the game, which runs the gamut from official apparel via the IGN store to fan-made designs available through retailers like TeePublic. Whether you need a jacket that shows love to God’s Favorite Princess Shadowheart or a more subtle T emblazoned with the game’s logo, there’s sure to be something that’ll strike your giftee’s fancy.

Shadowheart’s Artifact Replica

Price Range: $61.74 — $88.21

Image Credit: BevarianRoots and Larian Studios via Etsy

The Artifact which protects the party from the influence of the Netherbrain is one of the most notable pieces of iconography from the game, and you can grab an impressive replica of it for a modest price.

Boasting the ability to light up as well as a magnetic top to more discreetly hide the batteries, this hand-made bit of merch created by BevarianRoots on Etsy will show your intended recipient you both care about them and understand at least a little bit of what makes the series great. Plus, as an added bonus, it’ll lend some ambience to any space where it’s displayed, ensuring it’ll remain one of their favorite Knick Knacks for years to come.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Physical Deluxe Edition

Price: $79.99

Image Credit: Larian Studios

Before reading further, it’s worth noting that this gift is explicitly for those who wouldn’t mind receiving the promise of a better gift at a later date. The Deluxe Physical Edition of Baldur’s Gate 3 offered via the official Larian Merch Store isn’t set to release until early 2024, and won’t arrive in time for Christmas as a result.

If this isn’t a problem, then there’s little doubt this is the best possible gift for the Baldur’s Gate 3 fan in your life. Not only does it allow them to hold onto a physical copy of the game into the foreseeable future, but it comes with plenty of other goodies ranging from in-game bonuses to posters and a physical soundtrack.

About the author

Keenan McCall

Keenan has been a nerd from an early age, watching anime and playing games for as long as I can remember. Since obtaining a bachelor’s degree in journalism back in 2017, he has written thousands of articles covering gaming, animation, and entertainment topics galore.

[ad_2]

Keenan McCall

Source link

December 12, 2023
As Expected, Baldur's Gate 3 Wins Big at The Game Awards 2023

[ad_1]

Without a doubt, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been the talk of the town at least as far as the video game industry is concerned this year. Developed by Larian Studios, best known for making Divinity: Original Sin, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a DND-style RPG and it’s been lauded by critics across the board for its fantastic story and characterization.

The RPG swept up a whole ton of awards at The Game Awards 2023, and as you might’ve already guessed, it won the award of the night as well, the much coveted Game of the Year award. As usual, the announcement was preceded by a fantastic medley by the TGA orchestra, and the award was presented by actor Timothee Chalamet, who appeared in Dune, and is set to star in the upcoming Willy Wonka movie as well.

Since its release, Baldur’s Gate 3 has received a number of patches and updates to improve the game even further. Patch 5 was its most exciting one yet, introducing the new Honour Mode difficulty, throwing in a shoutout to Bing Bong, and also allowed players to finally obtain Orin’s cool outfit.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on PC and consoles.

About the author

Zhiqing Wan

Zhiqing is the Reviews Editor for Twinfinite, and a History graduate from Singapore. She’s been in the games media industry for nine years, trawling through showfloors, conferences, and spending a ridiculous amount of time making in-depth spreadsheets for min-max-y RPGs. When she’s not singing the praises of Amazon’s Kindle as the greatest technological invention of the past two decades, you can probably find her in a FromSoft rabbit hole.

[ad_2]

Zhiqing Wan

Source link

December 7, 2023
The Week's Best Game Tips and Deals, From Baldur's Gate 3 to Assassin's Creed

[ad_1]

Video games make the world a better place. We’ve got honkin’ deals on Xbox Series X, a new genocide-free romance option in Baldur’s Gate 3, and wicked-strong Marvel Snap decks for your perusing pleasure.

Baldur’s Gate 3’s Karlach Actor On Playing The Beloved Barbarian

Here are the tips and deals we found most helpful this week.

One Of The Best Assassin’s Creed Games Is Free On PC

Image: Ubisoft

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, the Ubisoft stealth adventure series’ 2015 entry featuring dual protagonists that’s set in 19th century London, is currently free on PC until December 6. There’s just one twist: You’ll need to get it from Ubisoft Connect launcher (insert horror emoji). Don’t hate the messenger. Read More

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch Now Lets You Recruit Minthara Without Mass Murder

Image: Larian Studios

Minthara is one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s most interesting companions, but only a select few people tend to see much of the Drow Paladin in their playthrough because recruiting her typically requires you to help her slaughter Tiefling refugees. Despite this, fans have found creative workarounds to recruit her without having to engage in genocide, but in Baldur’s Gate 3’s fifth patch, Larian has implemented a streamlined way to add her to your team. Read More

Baldur’s Gate 3’s New Patch Is The Best Reason Yet To Play More

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

Baldur’s Gate 3’s Patch #5 is bringing more reasons than ever to go back to Larian Studios’ excellent RPG with new modes and, more importantly, a new epilogue that takes place six months after the main game. Read More

60 Games Have Already Been Killed, And 2023 Ain’t Over Yet [Update]

Image: Arika / Bandai Namco Online / Digerati / EA / Gameloft / Secret Location / Ratloop Games / Square Enix / Hi-Rez / Good Luck Games LLC / Gun Media / Polyphony Digital / Warlogics / Sharkmob / Yager Development / Kotaku

We’re still making it through 2023 and a surprising number of games have already been killed off, as devs have announced their impending deaths. Normally, we’d reserve this list for the end-of-the-year round-up, but we’re ringing the death knell early because, with 15 games already lined up for public execution, we need to start paying our respects now. So, let’s get right into it. Read More

Say Goodbye To 2023 With December’s Game Releases

Gif: Square Enix / Vertigo Games / Warner Bros. / Ubisoft / Cygames / Nintendo

Well folks, the final 31 days of 2023 are upon us. While I expect you’ll likely have picked out your personal game of the year already, there’s still time for some more games to hit physical and virtual shelves, and maybe one of them will be a nice send-off to a wild year of killer games. Read More

Xbox Series X Briefly Selling For $350 In Biggest Discount Yet

Image: Microsoft

It’s no secret that the Xbox Series X hasn’t been selling great, and this holiday season Microsoft’s “next-gen” console is getting some huge discounts. For a brief period today, Amazon was selling the Starfield machine for as little as $350. Read More

Kotaku’s Weekend Guide: 8 Games To Welcome December With

Image: Remedy Entertainment / Eyeguys / Blizzard

Oh, hi again! We’re in the final month of what is arguably one of the most impressive years in gaming in recent memory. So when you find yourself at the end of the week looking to get some gaming in, how can you possibly choose among the embarrassment of riches that’s been released this year alone? Read More

Stomp Your Foes & Look Fly Doing It With This Marvel Snap Deck

Stomp Your Foes & Look Fly Doing It With This Marvel Snap Deck

NYC’s one and only Kingpin of crime headlines this manipulative, movement-based decklist

This Marvel Snap Deck Features A Devious, Devastating Combo

This Marvel Snap Deck Features A Devious, Devastating Combo

Hydra’s resident mad scientist headlines a destroy-centric decklist that’ll leave your opponents feeling some type of way

The Week In Games: Dark Knights And Dark Princes

The Week In Games: Dark Knights And Dark Princes

A new Dragon Quest, Pixel Cafe, and SteamWorld Build are also dropping this week

[ad_2]

Source link

December 2, 2023
Baldur’s Gate 3’s New Deluxe Edition Is A Steal For The Price

[ad_1]

Baldur’s Gate 3 already has one special edition, in the form of its Collector’s Edition. We even unboxed it here at Kotaku, and it’s got a lot of cool knickknacks that pay tribute to its tabletop roots. Of course that was expensive, solely for PC and PlayStation 5 players, and didn’t include a physical copy of the game itself. But Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming to Xbox next month, so Larian Studios is taking the opportunity to release a new, Deluxe Edition for all three platforms. And given what comes in the box, I think it’s pretty darn affordable.

11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator

The studio announced the Deluxe Edition, which includes physical game media on PC, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X/S. Oddly enough, because video game boxes are magic beyond our feeble comprehension, each version contains a different number of discs. Xbox Series X/S includes three, PlayStation 5 has two, and if you have a disc drive on your PC in 2023, that version only has one. Unlike the console versions, the PC edition doesn’t require the disc to play, and comes with a digital key. The DVD is just there to give you a custom installer.

Image: Larian Studios

Beyond the game itself, the Deluxe Edition includes 32 stickers, two patches, a world map, a gorgeous poster of a mind flayer, and a three-disc soundtrack, all in a box made to look like a book. The wild part is all of this comes in a $79.99 package, which is only $10 more than the base game.

So if you want something to display on your shelf and a disc to put in your console, this is a pretty great way to buy one of 2023’s best games. Unfortunately, it won’t arrive until Q1 2024, so if you want some instant gratification you’re maybe better off just buying the game on PlayStation Store or Steam, or waiting until the Xbox version launches in December. Larian has confirmed it will announce the release date of the Xbox Series X/S version at The Game Awards on December 7.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has become quite the cultural phenomenon since it launched in August, and with the Xbox version imminent, it’s about to ride another wave of people playing it for the first time. Larian has been updating the game frequently, with some patches fixing and tweaking over a thousand different variables. Some changes have addressed game-breaking issues, others simply shaved a cat after the community got upset when Larian gave it hair. You know, very normal stuff.

For more on Baldur’s Gate 3, check out our interview with the team at Larian about its approach to directing sex scenes.

[ad_2]

Kenneth Shepard

Source link

November 16, 2023
Baldur’s Gate 3 Is Still Great On PS5, Just A Little Rougher Around The Edges

[ad_1]

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an excellent game. The PC version of Larian Studios’ D&D epic will easily be a frontrunner in game of the year discussions come December, and the PlayStation 5 version is a comparable experience, at least if you don’t have a beefy enough PC to run the game well. That said, it definitely has more technical troubles than the PC version, although most of what I’ve come across hasn’t been game-breaking.

Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

The biggest culture shock between PC and PS5 is playing with controller, which uses the same control scheme as the one you can use on PC now. Having put over 100 hours into the game on PC with mouse and keyboard, I do find the DualSense is hurting for buttons in a game with this many actions to use and menus to scroll through, but the more time I spend playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with a controller, the quicker my mind instinctively relearns how to pull off my favorite spells, access different features, and navigate Faerûn from the comfort of my couch. Baldur’s Gate 3 still feels most sensible when you can easily point and click on the enemy you want to blow away with your Eldritch Blast, but Larian has done the best it can with the means of input it’s been given.

Combat and movement are serviceable, but I’ve had much more trouble with minute tasks like examining small items in a cluttered environment. In one of the early sidequests in Baldur’s Gate 3’s first act, my party of Mind Flayer tadpole-infected weirdos was looking through a hag’s lair and had to find a specific wand in the villain’s belongings. Combing through a desk covered in trinkets is much easier when you can just click on them, but while using a controller, it took several more button presses to just grab an item off the table. Pressing on the d-pad lets me focus on items in my surroundings and scroll through them like any other menu, but it definitely feels like an accommodation for not having a mouse to just click on things. Luckily, there is a cursor mode that lets you emulate having a mouse, but it’s not quite as precise or snappy. I definitely think anyone who is playing Baldur’s Gate 3 for the first time on console will be more than happy with these tools; I just catch myself experiencing momentary frustration with the adjustment from time to time.

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

While playing with a controller has been an adjustment, I’ve noticed some general technical issues on PlayStation 5 that haven’t been game-breaking, but have at the very least represented a noticeable dip in performance and fidelity compared to the game’s PC counterpart. Each issue has been small on its own terms, but over time they’ve compounded to have a noticeable impact. There are some graphical troubles like texture pop-in, and elements like certain characters’ faces are just presented at a reduced level of detail. I’ve especially noticed this during some sidequests, in which even characters you get some lengthy face time with just don’t look as great as they do on PC. In that same quest with the hag, I saved a girl named Mayrina from the witch’s clutches, and had some lengthy conversations with her in which it was clear the detail on her face and hair had been scaled back a bit for PlayStation 5. These kinds of accommodations are pretty standard, and in return, Baldur’s Gate 3 runs at a pretty solid 60fps in its performance mode, though if you want something with a little bit more fidelity at the expense of framerate, that option exists as well.

The more questionable issues have been less about general technical performance and more about a higher frequency of bugs than I experienced when playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC. The first was strange sound mixing in the final act. I loaded a save to play through Baldur’s Gate 3’s endgame and during some of the big climactic moments, the music was muted, and the sound effects of spells casting and swords swinging were delayed or nonexistent. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but it was drastic enough that the entire vibe of the section was off.

Sound mixing is a weird technical flub, but it doesn’t derail the Baldur’s Gate 3 experience on PlayStation 5. The strangest, unfortunately regularly-occurring glitch I ran into was in choosing dialogue. As I jumped around saves throughout my Baldur’s Gate 3 run, I ran into a few moments where the dialogue options were broken in a way I couldn’t overcome with a dice roll. A few times I would be engaging in a conversation (luckily nothing that could devolve into hostility) and instead of giving me several options to pick a response, I’d be met with only one option: “1. Continue.” Choosing this apparently counts for a dialogue option that should be showing up, but is hidden by a bug. Every instance this has happened to me has been a minor interaction and if I reloaded a save it would (sometimes) fix the issue, but if it persists into life-changing decisions or relationship-altering moments, this could fundamentally undermine the Baldur’s Gate 3 experience. I spoke with some folks who apparently encountered this glitch sparingly on PC, but I never saw it myself, then experienced it a handful of times in rapid succession in just a few hours of playing on PlayStation 5.

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

Whether or not you experience video game bugs, especially in a game with as many systems as Baldur’s Gate 3, is often about luck. I had a relatively painless experience playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC, and yet Larian was able to deploy a patch that fixed over 1000 bugs, the majority of which I’d never seen. I can’t say for sure if running into these issues on PS5 is just a poor dice roll on my part or speaks to some bugs being more prominent in this console port, but I’ve at least told Larian Studios about this specific issue, because its prevalence in my PS5 playtime is probably the biggest caveat as to whether or not I’d recommend playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on the system.

All that being said, it is a relief to finally be able to play Baldur’s Gate 3 from my couch. I’m still chipping away at my second playthrough, and being able to sit back and relax a bit as I work my way through all the quests and stories I missed the first time around is a real treat. But more than that, I’m looking forward to more people getting to experience this game. Its rougher edges on PlayStation 5 are most likely at the forefront of my mind because I’ve spent so much time playing on my decent PC, but if you were worried the console version was going to be a subpar experience, you won’t find that here.

[ad_2]

Kenneth Shepard

Source link

September 2, 2023
Short Baldur’s Gate 3 Players Can’t Properly Kiss Their Loves

[ad_1]

Baldur’s Gate 3 lets you romance a plethora of in-game characters. You can kiss them up in preparation for some tantalizing sex, but if you’re a short king or queen, then it appears you skip first base and get right to the second.

11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator

Larian Studios has made it clear that every character is horny. You can flirt with humans, demons, elves, and even bears—if it’s fuckable, it’s probably lovable, meaning you can cuddle up to nearlyanyone you put the work into. But the developers maybe weren’t prepared for how height differences play a role in smooching and coitus. And a Baldur’s Gate 3 player revealed just how, um, interesting a kiss looks when you’re pint-sized and your partner isn’t.

Read More: Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Everything: Polyamory, Bear Fucking, Blood Sacrifice

Kissing in Baldur’s Gate 3 is hard when you’re tiny

Jesse Vitelli, an associate editor at gaming publication Prima Games, tweeted on August 11 an image of their Gnome character attempting a kiss in-game.

“My gnome can’t even kiss my love because he’s too short,” Vitelli said. “This is the kissing animation. This is NOT Short King Summer.”

Gnomes are a race known for being fast and smart. They’re also one of the shortest races in the entire Dungeons & Dragons franchise at about 3 feet, 5.5 inches in height, second only to the Haflings that stand at roughly 3 feet tall. Vitelli’s love, the Tiefling Karlach, is anywhere from 5 feet, 6 inches to 6 feet, 2 inches tall. So, when Vitelli’s Gnome goes in for a kiss, instead of their lips locking in sensual romance, it looks like the Gnome is going down on the horned Karlach. I’m sure that wasn’t intended, but it happened and I’m dead.

In a direct message with Kotaku, Vitelli said his Rizzard (a portmanteau of “rizz” and “wizard” that he came up with because his Gnome was “trying to fall in love with multiple characters”) did kiss the High Half-Elf Shadowheart once but broke that budding relationship off when he saw the Tiefling Karlach.

“Karlach and I banged,” Vitelli said “The scene itself was fine except it was very funny to see my little Gnome’s butt be tiny [next to] Karlach and this giant demon lady.”

Kotaku reached out to Larian Studios for comment.

Read More: Baldur’s Gate 3 Is One Of 2023’s Best Games, Don’t Turn It Into A Weapon

At any rate, Baldur’s Gate 3 has taken the internet by storm. Not only has it become the highest-rated game on Metacritic, but it’s also got so many players on Steam that it nearly beat Hogwarts Legacy’s concurrent player count. Not everything is perfect. The studio is currently working on over 1,000 fixes, with mid-game character customization also coming down the pipeline. Still, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a shining beacon in the often troubled state of game development, even if some are using it to spark cyclical arguments.

[ad_2]

Levi Winslow

Source link

August 15, 2023
Baldur’s Gate 3 Will Soon Let You Re-Customize Your Character

[ad_1]

Image: Larian Studios

Baldur’s Gate 3 may soon let you change your in-game appearance after starting the game, offering an upgrade to the already-praised character creator.

11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator

Based on Dungeons & Dragons, the fantasy RPG from Larian Studios not only lets you select your class and race but also allows you to customize your “attachments” (like jewelry and scars), hair, tattoos, and even genitals. If your imagination conjures it, chances are you can bring it to fruition. But once your character is set, that’s it. Unlike other RPGs such as Cyberpunk 2077 or Diablo IV that let players change their hair, makeup, and other features on the fly, you can’t swap or tweak any part of your character around in Baldur’s Gate 3 once you start the game’s story. However, Larian Studios’ director of publishing Michael Douse revealed in a response on X, formerly Twitter, to a player who begged to change their in-game look that the team is currently working on it.

“Sir please let me change how I look in the game,” X user TheTrustedTitan said. “I’m begging!!!!”

“Things are being cooked,” Douse said.

Read More: Baldur’s Gate 3 Lets You Customize Your Character’s Genitals

Kotaku reached out to Larian Studios for comment.

Douse didn’t clarify what he meant here, and there’s no publicly announced timeline for when this mid-game character customization option will come to Baldur’s Gate 3. But it’s great knowing the look you chose to start the game won’t be the one you’ll have to stick to forever. It’s also worth mentioning that only the PC version is out now. Baldur’s Gate 3 will come to PlayStation 5 on September 6, and the team is still trying to make multiplayer work on Xbox Series S before it comes to that console and the beefed-up Xbox Series X.

Read More: Baldur’s Gate 3: The Kotaku Review

Here’s hoping it comes out soon, but even without it, the game is still super popular among critics and fans alike. This is just a nice-to-have, you know?

[ad_2]

Levi Winslow

Source link

August 15, 2023
Baldur’s Gate 3 May Not Get DLC Due To D&D’s OP Leveling

[ad_1]

The recently released Baldur’s Gate 3 is a massive RPG with high replay value due to all the choices you can make, so it might seem weird to be talking about the game getting an expansion. But the question has been asked, and the response from the people behind the hit RPG is basically, probably not, because high-level Dungeons and Dragons characters are too powerful.

The Week In Games: What’s Releasing Beyond Baldur’s Gate 3

If you’ve been on the internet lately, it probably seems like the world is obsessed with Baldur’s Gate 3, which fully launched last week to rave reviews after an extended period in Steam Early Access. The turn-based Dungeons and Dragons RPG is truly blowing up on Steam, with hundreds of thousands of players logging in all at the same time to play (and also to have sex…a lot of sex). And while the game is huge—taking dozens and dozens of hours to fully complete, with multiple endings—some are already wondering about future expansions. But, that’s probably not going to happen. And if it does happen, it’s going to take a long time.

In an interview with PC Gamer on August 7, Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke said that the team hadn’t even started on an expansion. And sure, the game caps out at level 12, but DnD supports level 20 characters. Naturally, that seems to leave room for a big follow-up expansion. However, Vincke explained that he thinks it would be “very hard” to continue the adventure with the high-level characters players have at the end of the game. That’s because, in DnD, when players start reaching level 13 and beyond they become nearly godlike. Spells that high-level players gain access to include the ability to see the future, or just instantly kill anything with less than 100HP.

Larian Studios

“[High-level DnD] adventures require a different way of doing things, in terms of antagonists you’re going to have to deal with, which require a lot of development to do them properly,” Vincke said, “Which would make this much more than an expansion in terms of development effort.”

Vincke explained that this is why a lot of DnD campaigns are designed for level 12 or lower characters. So while it might seem like a perfect opportunity for an expansion, to just let players hit level 20, it’s “not as easy as one would imagine.”

Promising an expansion too early could cause problems

Another issue that Larian Studios faces when trying to make a big follow-up expansion to Baldur’s Gate 3? All the choices you can make and the endings you can get. Vincke tells PC Gamer that if the studio was to build DLC for the RPG it would be hard, and players would have to wait for “a long time.”

There’d be one other complicating factor to making a Baldur’s Gate 3 expansion that picks up at level 13: all the possible permutations of a finished Baldur’s Gate 3 campaign feeding into that starting point. If Larian were to build something like that, “you’d have to wait for a long time,” Vincke said.

He further added that if the studio announced expansion plans too early and then, partway through development, realized the expansion was boring or not very fun, it’d have to keep working on it and try to get people to buy something it doesn’t fully believe in.

“That would not be cool. So we have to have the freedom to experiment and do our stuff. And then when we’re ready to announce it, we will.”

So for now, there is no plan to make a Baldur’s Gate 3 expansion, but there’s a small chance it could still happen. One day. Maybe.

[ad_2]

Zack Zwiezen

Source link

August 8, 2023
Critical Role’s Matt Mercer Solves Baldur’s Gate 3 Problems In The Most D&D Way

[ad_1]

Gif: Larian Studios / Kotaku

Finding nonsensical solutions to a problem is a core part of the Dungeons & Dragons experience, and not many people know that better than actor and Critical Role DM Matt Mercer. With Baldur’s Gate 3 out this week, it seems only natural that a D&D superstar would make his way to Larian Studios’ RPG set in that universe and also come up with a ridiculous play like stacking a few dozen boxes on top of each other to get over a defensive wall and into a castle.

11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator

Mercer, who appeared on a stream playing the game alongside Larian founder Swen Vincke, accomplished this feat by stacking 45 boxes to make a staircase. Using the jump command, Mercer scaled the makeshift stairs until he was high enough to fire an Arrow of Transposition, which teleports the user to wherever the projectile lands. Honestly, the whole thing kind of broke my brain.

I’m around 25 hours into Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’m still wrapping my head around how much chaos it allows for. More often than not, when we think of RPGs and systemic chaos we think of open-world games where there are all these clockwork systems that we disrupt as the player and watch disorder unfold. But I think Baldur’s Gate 3 is more impressive in that it gives you so many tools to navigate the world and find creative solutions that can support something like making a giant staircase of boxes and then teleporting via arrow. It rules.

As more players get their hands on Baldur’s Gate 3, we’ll no doubt see more people pulling off impressive nonsense, but shoutout to Mercer for ringing in release day with this terrific display.

While we might not have outlined anything this wild, we can give you some early-game tips to help you get started in Baldur’s Gate 3.

[ad_2]

Kenneth Shepard

Source link

August 4, 2023
When Is Baldur’s Gate III Coming To Xbox? It’s Complicated

[ad_1]

Baldur’s Gate III arrives on PC on August 3 and is right around the corner on PlayStation 5. But what about Xbox Series X/S? The sprawling role-playing game still doesn’t have a release date on Microsoft’s console, and developer Larian Studios still isn’t sure if that version of the game will be ready before the end of 2023.

Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

It’s a massive bummer for Xbox fans. The Dungeons & Dragons-based game has been in Early Access for several years, with fans patiently waiting to dip their toes into the deep end of its massive world full of hidden secrets and branching storylines. A console version of the game will arrive on PS5 on September 6, just in time to take advantage of Starfield’s absence from Sony’s “next-gen” platform. Larian says it needs more time to finish the Xbox version of the game, but hasn’t yet been able to commit to a firm launch date, only promising to update fans on the timeline later in the year.

Is Baldur’s Gate III a PS5 exclusive?

The short answer is: no. While the RPG is coming to PS5 first, Larian has been clear that there’s no timed-exclusivity deal in place or favoritism going on. It’s simply that the PS5 version is ready now and the Xbox one isn’t yet.

“There’s no platform exclusivity preventing us from releasing BG3 on Xbox day and date, should that be a technical possibility,” the studio wrote at the time. “If and when we do announce further platforms, we want to make sure each version lives up to our standards and expectations.”

Originally set to come out on August 31, Larian actually pushed the PS5 release date back a week so it would have more time to fine-tune its performance on that platform (the game is targeting 60fps).

Why isn’t there an Xbox Series X/S version yet?

The real culprit is the Xbox Series S. Larian mentioned back in February that it was still having issues with Baldur’s Gate III’s splitscreen coop on the less powerful hardware. Since Microsoft requires feature parity between the Xbox Series S and X, Larian seemingly didn’t have an option to change or cut things from the one version to get it out the door quicker.

“We’ve had an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate III in development for some time now,” Larian wrote in February. “We’ve run into some technical issues in developing the Xbox port that have stopped us feeling 100% confident in announcing it until we’re certain we’ve found the right solutions.”

Studio head Swen Vincke elaborated on the nature of some of the issues again in July, pointing to the challenge of optimizing a game for consoles that kept growing throughout development like Baldur’s Gate III. Players are free to explore its central hub city, and the game tracks tons of decisions made in order to create a more immersive playthrough as if you were part of a real-life D&D session.

“On Xbox, it’s a different platform, it has, as you know, there’s two platforms really,” Vincke told Kotaku. “And so we have to see where we ended up. And the team is committed to working on it, it has for a long time already. So they’re going bit by bit, you know, like, you tear down one performance barrier and go to the next one.” He added that Microsoft’s engineers have been helping Larian, but also pointed to the reality that it’s an independent studio with finite resources.

“Everybody wants this out on Xbox. It’s not that we don’t want it out on Xbox,” Vincke told IGN. “It’s just that, our problem — and this is us, Larian — is that we just made a very big game. And it’s a very complicated game.”

Baldur’s Gate III might not come to Xbox before 2024

So where does that leave the Xbox Series X/S version? The studio has said in the past that it’s hoping to get Baldur’s Gate III on Xbox by the end of 2023, but can’t commit to a hard date yet, especially as it prepares to juggle post-launch updates as the full game goes out into the wild. That hasn’t stopped the studio from getting hammered by angry Xbox owners, however.

“We have quite a few engineers working very hard to do what no other RPG of this scale has achieved: seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op on Series S,” Larian’s director of publishing, Michael Douse, tweeted on July 30 in response to the backlash. “We hope to have an update by the end of the year.” Hopefully, the studio continues to make progress on getting the Series S version up to snuff. It would be a nice holiday surprise to take Xbox owners into the post-Starfield winter.

[ad_2]

Ethan Gach

Source link

August 2, 2023
Baldur’s Gate III Will Come To Xbox Once Splitscreen Works On Series S

[ad_1]

Screenshot: Larian Studios

Yesterday, Larian Studios announced Baldur’s Gate III will come to PS5 the same day the PC version leaves Early Access. It sounded like an exclusivity agreement might be keeping it off Xbox, but the devs say that’s not the case. So what’s the hold-up? Getting the co-op RPG’s splitscreen action to work on the weaker Xbox Series S.

Larian revealed the August 31 launch date for the PS5 console port in a new trailer during Sony’s latest State of Play that, among other things, showcased actor J.K. Simmons voicing newly revealed villain General Ketheric Thorm. It’s normal for Sony-promoted teases to leave out competitors’ platforms, but when fans didn’t see an Xbox release date on Larian’s website either, they began to wonder.

Today, the studio clarified what’s going on, stating that an Xbox version will arrive if and when Larian can get splitscreen gameplay working across both Series S and Series X:

We’re seeing a lot of varied interpretations of what that means, so we wanted to clarify further. We’ve had an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate III in development for some time now. We’ve run into some technical issues in developing the Xbox port that have stopped us feeling 100% confident in announcing it until we’re certain we’ve found the right solutions—specifically, we’ve been unable to get splitscreen co-op to work to the same standard on both Xbox Series X and S, which is a requirement for us to ship.

There’s no platform exclusivity preventing us from releasing BG3 on Xbox day and date, should that be a technical possibility. If and when we do announce further platforms, we want to make sure each version lives up to our standards and expectations.

It’s an especially interesting wrinkle considering players have long speculated about the trade-offs and challenges involved in developing games for the similarly-specced PS5 and Xbox Series X that must also accommodate the less powerful Series S. Splitscreen can be an especially taxing feature, and was notably dropped from Halo Infinite last year as 343 Industries tried to salvage the online shooter’s live-service ambitions.

Baldur’s Gate III’s minimum PC specs already require an Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card at minimum, with a GeForce RTX 2060 recommended. While not likely to push PC players’ hardware the way recent blockbusters such as the Dead Space remake or The Callisto Protocol have, it’s still more than what your average isometric RPG fan probably has on hand. The console port could potentially be a big boon then to those who don’t already have a higher-end gaming PC, or the funds to upgrade. That said, for now it seems like the $250 Series S might be getting in the way.

[ad_2]

Ethan Gach

Source link

February 24, 2023