Oh, Baldur's Gate 3 Act 1 is "actually a very long tutorial"

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The roughly 30-hour first act is just a primer for what's to come

Baldur's gate 3 Minthara
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Baldur's Gate 3 Act 1, which by most estimates should take you between 30 and 40 hours to complete, is just a very long tutorial, Larian says.

As someone with very little prior knowledge of the series and who has never played Dungeons & Dragons, this would've been mighty handy to know. Watching Larian's long-awaited sequel become the biggest game in the world right now, smash Steam records left and right, and climb to the top of Metacritic's highest-rated PC games ever, I've been desperate to check it out for myself but also intimidated by its massive scale and unfamiliar systems. Little did I know the entire first act is literally designed to teach newcomers its ways. Larian founder Swen Vincke said as much in a recent interview with PC Gamer.

"If you pay very close attention to Act 1, you will see that it's actually a very long tutorial," he said. "Systems are being shown to you. The AI shows you a lot of things, and makes you realize [how they work], maybe sometimes subconsciously, but you figure things out. You discover increasingly sophisticated challenges, where you will always find a way, because there's always multiple solutions, anyway. But you might discover and stumble upon something that's possible, and from now on, it becomes part of the arsenal that you can use to play the game."

This will give me a lot more confidence the next time I find myself completely lost, encouraged by two key facts: Larian knows I'm lost and is subtly holding my hand, and also, I'm not the only one who doesn't know what's going on.

Watch a Baldur's Gate 3 Druid flatten the unluckiest NPC in the game with an 820-damage Owlbear divebomb off a castle wall, because why the heck not?

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.