Baldur’s Gate 3 is finally available on PlayStation 5. An Xbox release is still to come this year, but Larian Studios has a new blog out detailing how they’ve adapted their massively successful CRPG for its long-anticipated initial console release.
Written by Larian Studios’ Product Manager Emily Gera and published at the PlayStation Blog, the inside look covers some of the considerations that came with making sure the release was a smooth one. The first considerations for a console release is, of course, making it work with the controller. Since Baldur's Gate 3 features 600 spells and different actions, there's a lot of interaction going on. The developers designed controller support from the beginning. The original UI needed to be streamlined, and this is accomplished with radial menus, making it feel more native for controller.
With the PlayStation DualSense controller, the trigger button will bring up a radial menu that has a series of essential tools like your map, your journal, even your character sheet and combat log. These are the things you will constantly come back to, so they need to be readily available. You can also customize the radial menus to best organize things for how you play. Since there are thousands of potential variations, this is an important feature.
While playing, your controller will also be responsive in a way that gives some character to the experience. If you are battling with another magic wielder, the light bar will change to the color of the spell you're using, based on the damage type or intent. When there's moments of pressure, the brightness will go up and the haptics will get more intense.
Access to other important options like tactical view or dialogue history were also considered. Top-down tactical view can be accessed by zooming the camera out using the right stick. Common interactions like examine and jump are mapped on the d-pad since you'll use them often.
There's even room for the old school players, because you can switch up into cursor mode where their places at cursor on your screen and you can control your character in a traditional point and click style on a console.
Baldur's Gate 3 is out now for PlayStation 5 and PC.
