Baldur’s Gate 3 is set to start a new chapter tomorrow, as it finally hits Steam Early Access, but before you dive in, you might need to do some housekeeping. Larian Studios has lifted the lid on the RPG game’s system requirements, and it’s going to take up a lot more space that we initially thought.
Originally, the developers stated that Baldur’s Gate 3 would need at least 70GB free to install, but after much tinkering behind the scenes, the minimum storage requirement has been updated on Steam and is now more than double, taking up 150GB instead. That makes Baldur’s Gate 3 the size of 75 Baldur’s Gate 2s, unless you’re talking about the Enhanced Edition – then it’s only 50 times bigger, no big deal.
Despite being in Early Access, the much-anticipated sequel will land with a campaign spanning around 25 hours, eight playable races (some with sub-races), and five classes. It is still technically a pre-release, however, meaning there will be many updates that follow, potentially increasing storage requirements even further. So long as the patches don’t hit Modern Warfare-levels of ridiculousness, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Despite some hiccups in stability causing the Early Access release to be pushed back a week, the minimum and recommended requirements are quite conservative, hinting at relatively good optimisation. Basically, most people should be able to enjoy the game, so long as they’re using a quad-core processor, but it’s still worth seeing if your system makes the cut:
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit |
| API | Vulkan / DirectX 11 | Vulkan / DirectX 11 |
| Processor | Intel i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350 | Intel i7 4770k / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X |
| Memory | 8 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics | Nvidia GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X | Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX580 |
| Storage | 150 GB available space | 150 GB available space |
Larian Studios has gone all-in with Vulkan 1.1 as Baldur’s Gate 3’s default API, which has a much lower CPU overhead than alternatives on the market, not to mention more features. If you run into a problem with Vulkan, then you can breathe a sigh of relief that the game also supports DirectX 11 as a backup API.
As we head closer to the Baldur’s Gate 3 release date, these requirements may change, but we’ll keep you up to date with any adjustments made right here. In the meantime, you best get uninstalling those Steam sale titles you’ve downloaded in the hopes of finally booting them for the first time, as this is a chonky game.