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Early Access, or EA for short, is the funding and development model Larian Studios followed at the start of the game. Early Access games consists of buyers receiving an unfinished and/or unpolished version of the game in order to help providing feedback and funds, helping on the completion of it.
Larian decided to follow this model after seeing their continuous success in their previous games, Divinty: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2, which followed the same model.
The Early Access of Baldur's Gate 3 started on October 6th, 2020. Since then, Larian has released multiple patches fixing bugs and changing or adding content depending on the users' feedback. At the start, the game offered a limited amount of Classes, Races, Companions and quests.
Baldur's Gate 3's EA costed 60 US Dollars and remained the same on release. Early Access buyers did not have to buy the game again on full release.
The updates could be divided in two big groups; hotfixes, which only focused on fixing a certain amount of usually game-breaking bugs or crashes, and patches, which were updates usually surpassing 50 GB on size and added or vastly modified content and improved stability.
Timeline
Main page: Patch notes
2020
- February
27: Gameplay reveal at PAX East.
- August
25: Early Access is announced to be launched on September 30th.
- October
6: Early Acess is launched.
7: Hotfix #1 is released.
8: Hotfix #2 is released.
9: Hotfix #3 is released.
13: Patch 1 is released.
27: Patch 2 is released.
30: Hotfix #4 is released.
- December
2: Patch 3, first in a line of tens of GBs in size and save-breaking patches is released. This patch focused on stability and added options for pacifist players.
8: Hotfix #5 is released.
15: Hotfix #6 is released.
2021
- February
25: Patch 4 is releasead. Druid class is added alongisde an improvement on cinematics, stability and multiple Quality of Life features.
26: Hotfix #7 is released.
- March
4: Hotfix #8 is released.
23: Hotfix #9 is released.
- April
15: Hotfix #10 is released.
- May
12: Hotfix #11 is released.
- July
15: Patch 5 is released. A patch bigger in size than the fourth one, this update improved and changed multiple systems users sent feedback about: mainly the camping and dice rolling system, besides adding point-and-click barks, background goals and cinematics.
22: Hotfix #12 is released.
- August
5: Hotfix #13 is released.
24: Hotfix #14 is released.
31: Hotfix #15 is released.
- October
14: Patch 6 is released. A patch bigger in size than the fifth one, this update added the Sorcerer class. alongside the Grymforge region and a vast graphical update. Also, the typical bug-fixing and stability improvements.
21: Hotfix #16 is released.
28: Hotfix #17 is released.
- November
16: Hotfix #18 is released.
- December
2: Hotfix #19 is released.