Baldur's Gate 3 developers want players to delete their early access saves and uninstall the game ahead of 1.0 release

Baldur's Gate 3 is only days away, but Larian has dispensed some important advice to those who played the game during early access in the runup to launch. 

In short, the developers have advised that anyone who played Baldur's Gate 3 during early access take the time to uninstall both the early access client and to delete their saved games (via PCGamer). The developers also urged players to remove any mods that might be lingering around, too. 

In a post on Baldur's Gate 3 Twitter page, the developers said, "We recommend players with Early Access installed uninstall the game after deleting their save files. This will reduce the risk of file conflicts when the final game downloads, and should mean more playing, and no troubleshooting!"

This news comes in conjunction with the revelation that the upcoming fantasy RPG will also be unavailable for pre-loading before its full release. 

In another Tweet, Larian Studios told fans that "Unfortunately, we’re unable to make Baldur’s Gate 3 available for pre-load — Steam doesn’t support pre-load for Early Access titles because switching to pre-load would break the game for people currently playing Early Access."

We still recommend deleting your save files/mods and doing a fresh install of Baldur’s Gate 3 in preparation for August 3!August 1, 2023

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For those with slow internet connections, this means even more waiting before they can get their hands on one of the most exciting upcoming games of the year. 2023 is shaping up to be a bumper year for CRPGs, and it's a shame that some will get to experience one of the genre's biggest releases of all time. 

Though the loss of saves has been a clearly advertised price of admission for Baldur's Gate 3 early access, it'll be a shame to say goodbye to those characters. Despite all of them being named Tav, these avatars came in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, it looks like these first forays into Larian's expansive fantasy title must now be consigned to oblivion. Though gone, the Tavs shall remain forever in our hearts.  

Baldur's Gate 3 may well be one of the best RPGs of the decade so far. However, if you're looking for story-driven games of an altogether different tradition, our list of the best JRPGs is well worth checking out.