Baldur’s Gate 3 launch is moving up almost a month for PC owners

PS5 players get a mild delay

Baldur’s Gate 3 is moving up its launch date by almost a month for PC players. Larian Studios announced that Baldur’s Gate 3 will come to PC on August 3 now, while the PlayStation 5 version will launch a week later than expected on September 6.

Originally, Baldur’s Gate 3 was set for August 31 on both PC and PS5. However, with an increasingly busy late-summer launch window, it looks like Larian isn’t holding onto Baldur’s Gate 3 for longer than it needs to.

“Reaching a technical bar that matches our design ambitions felt like the right move, while holding back the PC version when we knew we’d be ready felt like the wrong move in such a busy launch period,” said Michael Douse, director of publishing.

PlayStation 5, meanwhile, is looking solid according to Larian’s metrics. It’s reaching 60 FPS for the console port. Larian also shared a few more metrics about the upcoming RPG, including a script that has more dialogue than “three times all three Lord of the Rings books combined” and “over 170 hours of cinematics.”

Importantly, this also means 7 playable characters at launch, alongside the custom character option. For said character creator, there will be 11 playable races, 31 subraces, 12 classes and 46 subclasses, and over 600 spells and actions (excluding upcasts). That is, well, a lot. More info about Baldur’s Gate 3 will arrive on July 7, during Larian’s Panel From Hell: Release Showcase.

A big year for role-playing

This moves the PC version of Baldur’s Gate 3 back a bit, towards the start of August, while putting its PS5 version directly against the Xbox and PC RPG Starfield, which goes live on September 6.

It feels a bit like counter-programming, as PS5 owners may be looking for a new RPG to put up against all the fancy new Starfield owners. For PC players, especially those who have owned and been waiting for Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s an exciting announcement. It’s also a massive date shift, one of the more notable ones in recent memory. We’ll see how Larian’s confidence pays off in August.