August 3, 2023: You can now read our Baldur’s Gate 3 review.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the first modern entry from the classic 1990s CRPG series. Based on Dungeons and Dragons 5e rules, it takes place in the DnD setting of The Forgotten Realms. This guide tracks all the key information released about the game by developer Larian Studios and will tell you its release dates for all platforms.
This guide will ensure you’re up to speed with everything you need to know about Baldur’s Gate 3. For deeper dives into specifics, check out our full guides to the Baldur’s Gate 3 classes and Baldur’s Gate 3 races – or perhaps our explainer on the Baldur’s Gate 3 max level. We’ve even got a guide to playing Baldur’s Gate 3 coop.
You can also check out some other top DnD games here – or if you’d rather do things the old-fashioned way, Wargamer has plenty of advice on DnD classes, DnD races and DnD character sheets.
Baldur’s Gate 3 release date
The full Baldur’s Gate 3 release date was August 3, 2023. We emphasise ‘full’, because the game was already extremely playable prior to final release. Act one has been available in early access since October 7 2020, and Larian has updated it continuously since then.
If you’re here, you might be wondering about Baldur’s Gate 3’s console release. Baldur’s Gate 3’s PS5 release date was September 6. Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox release date is yet to be announced.
The game is also coming to Mac, though the Baldur’s Gare 3 Mac release date was recently delayed, pushed back to later in September.
Baldur’s Gate 3 release times
Baldur’s Gate 3 was released at 8am PT and 11am ET. As the above Larian graphic shows, the game launched at these times in other areas:
- 12pm BRT
- 4pm IST (and BST)
- 5pm GEST
- 11pm MYT
- 12am JST
- 1am AEST
- 3am NZST
Baldur’s Gate 3 updates
Larian has released plenty of Baldur’s Gate 3 updates between the game’s entry into Early Access and the August 2023 full release.
Patch #9 was released on December 14, 2022. Named ‘Holy Knight’, it predictably adds the DnD Paladin to the game, along with two subclasses. If you’re not one for praying to 5e gods, there’s still plenty to be pleased about in the latest patch. Larian’s revamped the reaction system in combat, and raised the game’s level cap to level 5.
Prior to that the most recent major Baldur’s Gate 3 update was Patch #8. This added the DnD Bard class and DnD Gnome species to the game, along with new hairstyles, and most importantly… shovels! It came out on July 7, 2022. Before that, Patch #7 on February 15 brought the DnD Barbarian class to Baldur’s Gate 3, and revamped the game’s animations.
Past patches have been used by Larian as an opportunity to flesh out Baldur’s Gate 3’s class roster, but a few still need to be added to the game including the 5e Monk and DnD Artificer. On the races front, we’re still missing Dragonborn, and Half-Orcs.
Some classic heroes will make their appearance in Baldur’s Gate, Minsc and Boo – and Minsc is voiced by none other than Matt Mercer! We also recently got an in-depth look at the finalised BG3 character creator.
Baldur’s Gate 3 platforms
Right now Baldur’s Gate 3 is out on PC and PS5. It was originally coming to consoles the same day as the PC version, August 31, but then the PC version got bumped forward a month, and the console release was pushed back to September 6. On PS5, you’re able to play local co-op split screen with two players, or online with four.
Good news for Xbox owners – the game is not a Sony exclusive. Larian is going to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox Series X and S. Apparently, it’s had trouble getting the split screen to work on these consoles, so it’s yet to declare a BG3 Xbox release date.
Larian has ruled out a release on last-gen consoles, however, so there’ll be no PS4 or Xbox One release.