You're as likely to finish Baldur's Gate 3 as that D&D campaign your friends keep talking about

A typical playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 will take anywhere from 75 to 100 hours – you know, the length of a proper D&D session. 

That comes from developer Larian Studios, who has been talking to IGN about the upcoming game. Larian boss Swen Vincke bases the estimate on someone playing solo and only doing a handful of what’s on offer. You can expect a grander time commitment if you’re more of a completionist. 

“Between 75 and 100 hours, that's what we're seeing,” Vincke says. “That's not doing everything, that is just going to be a playthrough. There will be people who will be way over that, the ones who want to do everything. They will probably hit 200 hours, I think. On average we're seeing people who are going through take about 75 to 100 hours.”

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If you think the jump to completionist from casual is big, you’ve read nothing yet. Vincke reckons you’ll be playing this one for a year at least if you’re going multiplayer. The reasons for that relate more to the availability of your friends than content, though – just like an actual D&D session. 

“There are multiple ways of playing it, right?” Vincke says. “We saw that with [Divinity: Original Sin 2] and it will be no different here. People who are going to be playing in multiplayer, they'll take a year, a year-and-a-half. They will make their regular sessions where they play, like D&D.”

Now, what I’m keener on is what you get up in Baldur’s Gate 3. Speaking to Kotaku, Vincke says it’s possible to be turned into a cheese wheel.

“It’s possible to be turned into a cheese wheel in this game,” Vincke says. “And so you are going to travel as a cheese wheel and it looks like you’re playing Pac-Man. So we’re just gonna go through the game and you will 100 percent accept and you will 100 percent understand why you became a cheese wheel and it will be your agency that causes you to become a cheese wheel, right? But it will still surprise you that that’s what happens.”

One year as a cheese wheel because I decided to play in a group D&D session? Count me in.

Baldur's Gate 3 has triple the word count of Lord of the Rings and its cutscenes are twice as long as Game of Thrones.