Baldur's Gate 3 has made the unusually bold choice to move up its release date by a month to August 3. When can players who pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe Edition start playing the game? The Digital Deluxe Edition promised "72-hour early access to Act 1," but it turns out that this is only available for the PlayStation 5 version, which will be released on September 6.

"The PC Digital Deluxe Edition does not include the 72-hour early access, effectively making the game's release date July 31," Larian said in a community update Wednesday. Larian said that moving up the release date "had some complications and we were unable to communicate them well," and that "it would not have been reasonable to move up the release date by 72 hours for the PC version."

Reading between the lines, it appears that Larian is working on Baldur's Gate 3 until the last minute; in February, Larian announced that BG3 would be released from Early Access on August 31. Just two weeks later, Bethesda broke the news that Starfield would be released on September 6. This must have been a big "oh no" moment for Larian. If the studio hadn't been absolutely sniffing around to meet the new date of August 3, the PS5 version would not have been released a full month later.

It may be a little disappointing that the PC version does not get the 72-hour pre-release, but depending on how you look at it, PC players are really getting a 34-day head start. If you include the Early Access launch, that's a three-year start.

Larian reiterated that if you purchase the Early Access version of "Baldur's Gate 3" for PC before the main game is released, you will have access to all the extras that come with the pre-order of the digital deluxe version:

However, there are only a few weeks left until the launch, and the studio is at this time not recommend playing the Early Access version. They say, "This is partly because the Early Access version is old, but also because we are so close to launch and we want to make it clear that saves from the Early Access version will not carry over to the final version.