Larian Studios has just revealed the eagerly awaited Early Access release date for its upcoming RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. At the Panel of Hell livestream, the studio announced that it is aiming for September 30th,2020 as the date PC and Stadia players will be able to jump into the first Act of Early Access.
Speakers on The Panel From Hell Swen Vincke, Chris Perkins, Adam Smith, and Geoff Keighley went into some depth about Baldur’s Gate 3’s Early Access content, and the journey Larian is soon embarking on with its players.
The final part of the game’s now roughly six-minute CGI introduction revealed that players begin their journey in Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells. Avernus featured heavily in the recently released D&D adventure module Descent Into Avernus, which saw the entire city of Elturel dragged into hell.
The city was saved, but the aftermath of that cataclysmic event casts a shadow over the events of Baldur’s Gate 3. But players won’t just see the aftermath – captive aboard a nautiloid, they take part in a daring escape as the ship jumps between planes of existence, and is caught up in the fury of the eternal, apocalyptic Blood War that rages across the hellscape. Avernus will be featured throughout the game, alongside many other locations that will be announced later.
One of the scenes shown at the Panel of Hell was the lobotomy scene, a new gameplay snippet shown during the stream. As players attempt to seize control of the nautiloid, they find a corpse with its brain exposed. The brain itself seems to address the player, asking them to free it. At this point, the player can decide to get their hands dirty, extracting the brain from the skull, which leads to the discovery that it’s not a brain at all, but rather a trapped Intellect Devourer. These creatures feed on the intelligence of sentient beings, taking over their victims’ bodies on behalf of their Mind Flayer masters.
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