With Baldur's Gate 3's PC release date coming soon, a lot of players are asking: is there a preload, and how big is its size? We will answer both of those questions.

First off, let's start with the biggest question: does Baldur's Gate 3 have a preload? No, Baldur's Gate 3 won't have a preload.

In a recent tweet from the game's Twitter account, they mentioned that they will not be able to include a preload for it. According to them, “Steam doesn’t support pre-load for Early Access titles.” This is because if the game switched to preload, it would “break the game for people currently playing Early Access.” They said the same thing in a recent community post, firmly stating that there will be “no pre-loading of the game before then.”

Although Baldur's Gate 3 does not have a pre-load, we at least know its size. In the same community post, they stated that the game “weighs in at approximately 122 GB.” That means that once the game comes out on August 3, 2023, players will have to download the full game. This is due to the fact that in the three years that it has been in early access, so many things have changed that the early access build of the game is very much different from the full release.

This is actually the same reason why Early Access save files won't carry over to the full game. Early Access save files will not be compatible with the full game because of the sheer amount of new things the developers have added to the game. This includes new races, classes, and more. They did mention, however, that the game will have cross-save compatibility. Players can freely transfer their save files between PC, the Steam Deck, and, once it comes out on September 6, 2023, the PlayStation 5 version of the game.

Again, to be very clear: Baldur's Gate 3 does not have a preload available before its launch date. Players will have to download the full 122GB game on the day of its release.

That's all the information we have about Baldur's Gate 3's preload, size, and more. Check out our gaming news articles for the latest in gaming news.