When Larian Studios announced that they were planning to release Baldur’s Gate 3, I knew that they would create a piece of art that I’d be able to sink hundreds of hours into, if I so desired. This was based on their earlier games, especially Divinity Original Sin 2, which took me forever to beat.
Both Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity Original Sin 2 provide players with thousands of options in the form of sidequests, treasures, areas, NPCs, and more. Those are, of course, totally optional but they flesh out the story quite a bit and it wouldn’t be the same game without them.
The world of Faerun is vast but players can, however, choose to only focus on the main story too. Depending on which route you go, the time it takes to beat the game will vary enormously.
So, how long does it take to complete Baldur’s Gate 3?
For a completionist who wants to complete sidequests and experience all aspects of the game, a full playthrough can take somewhere between 150-200 hours. Those who only focus on the game’s main story can reach the end of the game within 50-75 hours. Lastly, focusing on the main story but including the larger optional quests will take you about 90-100 hours.
Of course, there are a bunch of variables that factor in when considering the time it takes to beat the game. Regardless of which of the above categories you place yourself in, these elements will determine if you’re in the lower or upper range of the time span:
- Reloading: Sometimes, players will have to reload the game because they are killed in battle, die to traps, or are unhappy with the outcome of an action they take in either dialogue, battle, or the open world and want a second chance.
- Dialogue: Talking to every NPC and listening to the dialogue without clicking through it will prolong the game, as the dialogue is acted out by the characters. Dialogues are an essential part of the game and there are more than hundreds of hours of ‘possible’ dialogue in the game.
- Reading: The game is full of books, letters and notes. There’s generally little value to keeping them in your inventory after reading them, but sometimes the book, note, or letter will reveal something or be of utter importance for the game. Simply clicking read on the item will have your character speed-reading it in a second and reacting if there’s anything of value in the book. If you choose to read these books yourself, you’ll likely spend 10-20 hours doing so, as there are more than 500 readable items in the game.
According to howlongtobeat.com, the fastest recorded playthrough is 24 hours, whereas the slowest is 250 hours. I’m sure there are speedrunners who’ve completed the game in less than 24 hours, but few of us mortals have that type of knowledge of the game’s mechanics during our first playthrough.
How Long Are The Acts In Baldur’s Gate 3?
Baldur’s Gate 3 consists of three acts, each act contains a bunch of content. If every nook and cranny is explored, you can expect all of the acts to take a lot of time. With that said, they’re not equally long in terms of duration.
The first act of Baldur’s Gate 3 is estimated to take between 25-40 hours, depending on your playstyle and ambition. The opening act can both be slowed down and sped up by the fact that players haven’t gotten to know the game and its mechanics yet.
Some will be slowed by the lack of knowledge because they’re trying to understand and learn, others will neglect the amount of content Larian Studios put in their games and just brute force through the game.
The second act of Baldur’s Gate 3 makes up the bulk of the game’s playtime. The second act is partially played out in ‘The Underdark’ and contains a lot of story development, exploration, sidequest progression, and introduction of new characters.
Being the lead-up to the final act, the second act has a lot of optional content but also a lot of main-story content that has to be done in order to proceed to the last act. The second part of the game is estimated to take between 50-70 hours, but I can tell you that it is very possible to surpass that amount for the curious.
The third and last act of Baldur’s Gate 3 is set in the city of Baldur’s Gate, with a portion of the act set in surrounding encampments. The game’s finale is considered the shortest act of the three, but there’s still plenty of content to experience.
For completionists, the third act will be full of stuff to do as this is the last chance to complete sidequests, forcing you to scour every building to tie up any loose ends. So, the third act can take anywhere between 25-35 hours to complete.
Does this matter? Will you even notice when you’ve progressed from one act to another?
The time duration of each act doesn’t matter per se, but it can give you an idea of how much time you’ll spend in any given part of Faerun, as the three acts play out in different parts of the world. New characters are presented in each act along with new narratives and locations.
Familiar characters who you might’ve met during one of the acts can also reappear during the following acts. This creates a type of compounding effect, as you create more and more content for yourself in the upcoming acts the more sidequests and exploration you do during the early acts.
Quests will often overlap the acts, making it possible for a minor detail in the first act to become a large quest in the last act because of the story’s development.
You might pick up an item that seems to do no good at the beginning of the game, only to find out that the item is of great value when it is used properly, which you weren’t able to do prior to gaining said knowledge in later parts of the game.
For How Long Has Baldur’s Gate 3 Been In Development?
The plans for the game started when Wizards of the Coast gave Larian Studios the green light to produce the game. They were impressed by Larian’s game Divinity Original Sin 2, which was released in 2017. Wizards had, however, received a bunch of pre-release material sometime during either 2016 or 17.
The studio then released Baldur’s Gate 3 in August of 2023, meaning the game was in development for a 6-year period. The game was available for early access in October 2020, during which players only could experience the first act of the game.