Baldur's Gate 3 reveals the faces of eight races for early access

The early access launch for Baldur's Gate 3 is just a handful of days away now—which is exactly how much time I need to prepare myself for the character creator in an RPG. Larian Studios have gone over the eight races and their several sub-races that you'll be able to choose from during early access. They've also opened signups for a Larian account that will allow you to play your saved games across storefronts and platforms if you like.

When Baldur's Gate 3 launches in early access next week you'll be able to make a custom character as a human, dwarf, drow, elf, half-elf, halfling, tiefling, or githyanki. Several races have sub-races as well such as the Gold or Shield dwarves, various tiefling bloodlines, and the few other halves for your half-elf.

Larian say that you'll also be able to choose your usual RPG character bits like hair colors and styles, eye color, tattoos, and makeup. Eye colors will have suggested "canon" options based on your race but they say you're free to ignore those and make your own extra special adventurer. They also mention altering facial features, though we'll see how in-depth that goes. In Larian's last RPG, Divinity: Original Sin 2, facial features were handled by a collection of face presets. As for these new faces, Larian go into how they were developed.

"When cinematic dialogues were introduced for BG3, we realized we needed to make a huge quality leap in our character art," says lead character artist Alena Dubrovina in Larian's post. "We decided to use scanned faces in our production to create characters that were as realistic as possible. We scanned 40 people of different ages and ethnicity. While scouting for models we focused on features that would fit our fantasy races and we looked for faces that either had something unique about them or were very versatile to fit different characters." Dubrovina says those 40 faces became the starting points for a total of 150 faces Larian created for the game.

As for cross-saving, Larian have opened signups for player accounts through their site. Divinity: Original Sin 2's definitive edition has save compatibility between Steam and the Nintendo Switch by linking your Steam account. This time around, Larian say that signing up for Larian account will let you use Baldur's Gate 3 saves on "Steam, Stadia, and GOG, as well as potential future platforms if and when released." Your Larian account is also where Twitch streamers can find the extension to let their audience vote on decisions. They add that these new Larian accounts are "in the same spirit as Early Access" and that they have plans for additional features to offer later on.

Baldur's Gate 3 launches on Steam, GOG, and Stadia on October 6th. Start planning those characters now.