Baldur’s Gate 3 launch in 2022 ‘unlikely,’ says studio boss

However Baldur’s Gate 3 has been available in early access for 16 months, don’t expect Larian Studios’ highly anticipated role-playing game to make a full launch in 2022.

“Right now our expectation is that Baldur’s Gate 3 will be released out of Early Access in 2023,” the studio said in a news release on Tuesday. The studio added that “a ton of progress has been made” toward a build that makes developers comfortable with setting and hitting a launch date.

In an interview with Eurogamer published Wednesday, studio founder Swen Vincke also said developers “still think we have a year of development ahead of us,” and called a 2022 launch “unlikely.”

Vincke stated that the studio was still working on its final component of the game. From there it will need the usual polishing and bug-fixing, which Vincke expects to take some time. Tuesday’s news release credited a year’s worth of early access play with helping refine and speed that process.

A statement was made in support of the announcement Baldur’s Gate 3’s seventh major patch since its early access launch on Oct. 6, 2020. “Absolute Frenzy,” as Patch 7 is called, introduces a fog-of-war mechanism to the map, and makes other changes to improve stealth gameplay.

Barbarian is a new class that joins the game. Two sub-classes, Wildheart (and Berserker) further specialize it. Patch 7 introduced Improvised Weapons & Thrown Weapons. This allows you to create improvised weapons and throw them. It also includes new magic loot as well as upgrades for almost 700 film scenes.

Eurogamer has more from its interview with Vincke, but the key points are: Larian isn’t for sale, and no one’s trying to buy the studio, and it has zero interest in NFTs. “We’re not doing it, so that’s basically it,” Vincke said.