In short, Larian is very keen for you to completely eradicate the game's EA version from your PC before launch.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is hours away and I’ve already written off my weekend as a total loss. But if you too are about to spend the next several hundred hours of your life in Faerûn, Larian says there are some things you should know before going in, especially if you’ve been playing the game’s early access version up to now.
In a news post titled “Baldur’s Gate 3: Preparing for Launch” on the game’s Steam page, Larian’s put together a six-step to-do list for anyone about to gather their party and venture forth. The key takeaway is something the studio has emphasised before: You should really scrub your PC clean of any trace of the game’s EA version before you install and run the full game after it releases at 8 am ET / 11 am PT / 4 pm BST today.
Point one on the list is to delete your saves from within BG3 itself. Just navigating to the folder and deleting it in File Explorer might cause the game’s cloud save system to have a meltdown, so instead you’re advised to hit Load Game at the main menu before going through and deleting your old campaigns. Once that’s done, uninstall the game and delete any mods you have still lingering in its former directory.
The unique situation of BG3’s release has really highlighted some of the inefficiencies in the way Steam is set up to handle pre-loads and early access games. I suppose the nature of its release is fairly unique—its EA version functioned more as a demo or prototype than as an unfinished model of the final game—but it really feels like a platform as massive as Steam should be able to handle a preload for BG3 without its servers buzzing and sparking. Maybe Valve will solve that one out in time for Baldur’s Gate 4.
Apart from scouring your PC clean of BG3’s EA version, the other steps on Larian’s list are more like guidelines or strong recommendations. Firstly, the studio says an SSD is still “highly recommended” for players looking for somewhere to put the game’s 122GB bulk (an SSD is likewise listed as “required” in the game’s required specs), although it doesn’t say just what you’re letting yourself in for if you try to put it on a traditional hard drive. Load times long enough to inflate what will assuredly be its already lengthy HowLongToBeat times, I bet.
Otherwise, it’s the kind of thing savvy PC gamers like your good self can already suss out: Keep your GPU drivers updated and refer to the game’s FAQ—which you’ll be able to find in the game’s launcher at launch—if you run into further problems. Good luck everyone, may we all manage to beat this thing before Starfield hits in, my god, 34 days.
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