{"id":1471948,"date":"2026-01-23T09:06:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T09:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/R2jZGPpwKqzyL7G9TaVhdK"},"modified":"2026-01-23T09:06:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T09:06:05","slug":"a-baldurs-gate-3-style-early-access-period-wouldnt-have-done-much-for-deadfire-the-secret-best-crpg-of-the-last-decade-per-its-director-josh-sawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/a-baldurs-gate-3-style-early-access-period-wouldnt-have-done-much-for-deadfire-the-secret-best-crpg-of-the-last-decade-per-its-director-josh-sawyer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Baldur’s Gate 3-style early access period wouldn’t have done much for Deadfire, the secret best CRPG of the last decade, per its director Josh Sawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is, you may have heard, the 40th best videogame<\/a> you can play right now. Ask certain incredibly cool members of the PC Gamer team<\/a> and they might even tell you it’s actually<\/em> higher than that. But it’s also not a super difficult game\u2014it’s fairly easy to assemble a party that can make mincemeat of any foe they happen across.<\/p>\n

Would it have done better if, instead of its more general backer beta that focused on player response to the game as a whole, it had adopted a Baldur’s Gate 3-style early access period, where an early portion of the game was released and used to aggressively fine-tune balance in particular? Its director, Josh Sawyer, doesn’t think so.<\/p>\n

“I still think we would have had the same issues,” said Sawyer in response to a question from a fan. “A lot of the issues were evident because they got magnified over the course of the game\u2014the later you get in the game, the more the balance gets out of wack, just because there are more numbers inputting into the system.”<\/p>\n

After all, BG3’s balance wasn’t perfect. “This is not a slam against BG3, but just sort of recognition: at launch, a lot of people really did not speak fondly of how the third act of BG3 was balanced.<\/p>\n

“That’s probably because a ton of people saw the beginning of the game\u2014the early game\u2014and then the midgame got a lot of testing. And, as is very common in game development, something slipped through the cracks, and they later addressed it.” That is to say, even with its long time in the balance oven, even BG3 still had its issues when it hit, because it’s a mortal game made by mortal hands.<\/p>\n

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