Baldur's Gate 3 increases system requirements 'to better reflect the realities of the launch version'

(Image credit: Larian Studios)

It's been nearly four years since Larian Studios announced Baldur's Gate 3. That's an awfully long time in PC gaming terms, and it's come an awfully long way since then. So it shouldn't be entirely surprising that your rig is going to be a little beefier than developers originally thought in order to run the game comfortably.

"Baldur's Gate 3's graphical fidelity and complexity has improved quite a bit as it's grown throughout Early Access," Larian said at the tail-end of yesterday's launch date announcement.

"We've been keeping an eye on its minimum system requirements, and as the game nears release we've raised the minimum system requirements listed on Steam to better reflect the realities of the launch version."

Minimum:

Processor: Intel i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350 -> Intel I5 4690 / AMD FX 8350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X -> Nvidia GTX 970 / RX 480 (4GB+ of VRAM)
Storage: 70 GB available space -> 150 GB available space

The change might be frustrating for anyone who was on the bubble with the original specs, but I think shifting hardware requirements are kind of inherent to the whole early access process: Developers release a game in a half-finished state and then spend the next year or two (or four, as the case may be) working on it, and by the time it's ready for full release, things have changed, and what was good enough then isn't going to cut it now—or at least, isn't going to perform to the originally anticipated standard.

Baldur's Gate 3 is now set to come out on August 31, and—in case you missed it yesterday—will feature JK Simmons as General Ketheric Thorn, "a seemingly invincible necromancer leading an army of the dead toward the city of Baldur's Gate." Simmons is known for his previous work as the voice of Aperture Science founder and CEO Cave Johnson in Portal 2 and a Dota 2 announcer pack, and has also appeared in a few movies and television shows.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.