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Baldur’s Gate 3 Revealed, Lost Zelda: OOT Beta Footage

TODAY: Even more companies deciding to stay away from GDC — Prove your mettle as a Trainer in the 2020 International Challenge — What better way to show off a horror game than filming horrified players?

Baldur’s Gate 3 At PAX

Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 will appear on Steam Early Access this summer

Larian Studios has finally revealed Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay, and ravenous fans have greedily devoured every morsel old-school D&D goodness. They have also announced that they will release on Early Access in a few months.

Many companies might find the idea of following in BioWare’s footsteps intimidating, but Larian has spent the last ten years making epic single-player and co-op RPGs, and appear to be handling the classic franchise with aplomb. You can watch the whole reveal from PAX East on YouTube and enjoy the opening cinematic.

Gameplay:

  • Turn-based rather than real-time and pausable combat
  • Simultaneous turns for party and enemies
  • Everyone can use bonus actions to widen the tactical space
  • The whole game can be played like it was turn-based or classic real-time

Story:

  • The story revolves around the Mind Flayer Nautiloid who attacks a city, abducts people and implants Illithid tadpoles
  • The Githyanki appear and attack the Nautiloid, causing it to flee and eventually crash
  • The player character survives abduction but has been implanted and has seven days to find a cure
  • Tadpole implants give abilities like mind links and other unusual powers

Races and classes:

  • Races revealed so far:
    • Tiefling
    • Drow
    • Human
    • Githyanki
    • Dwarf
    • Elf
    • Half-Elf
    • Half-Drow
    • Halfling
  • Six classes:
    • Wizard
    • Cleric
    • Fighter
    • Ranger
    • Rogue
    • Warlock

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

Who developed Tales from the Borderlands alongside Gearbox?

  • Sierra Entertainment
  • Telltale Games
  • Stormind Games
  • King Art Games

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Daily Fact

Bravely Default started as a sequel to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy – released in Japan in 2012 and appearing elsewhere in 2013/14 – started out as a sequel to Square Enix’s 2009 Nintendo DS title Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light says producer Tomoya Asano.

Silicon Studio landed the project after impressing Square Enix with a prototype, and while it had left behind the Final Fantasy franchise, it kept a sense of “comfortable familiarity” since it kept the series’ battle system and setting.

Tomoya Asano calls it a “Japanese RPG with American content thrown in” since it was heavily influenced by Western pop culture.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

COVID-19 Putting Pressure On GDC

Microsoft, Unity and Epic Games have cancelled their GDC appearances

More and more companies are withdrawing from Game Developers Conference 2020, and now heavy hitters like Microsoft, Unity and Unreal have announced they’re cancelling their appearances. Meanwhile, the city of San Francisco has officially declared a ‘local emergency’ over the COVID-19 health threat.

Microsoft: “After a close review of guidance by global health authorities and out of an abundance of caution, we’ve made the difficult decision to withdraw from participating at Game Developers Conference 2020 in San Francisco. The health and safety of players, developers, employees, and our partners around the world is our top priority. Especially as the world is experiencing growing public health risks associated with coronavirus (COVID-19).” Microsoft intends to host a “digital-only event” from March 16th to 18th broadcasting their talks.

Unity: “Unfortunately, this year, after much thought and deliberation, we have made the difficult decision to pull out of GDC 2020. While we did not make this decision lightly, the current conditions with COVID-19 (also known as Novel Coronavirus) present too much risk. We take our employees’ wellbeing very seriously. We do not want any Unity employee, partner, community member or developer to compromise their health and safety unnecessarily.”

Epic Games: “Here at Epic we were excited about participating in GDC 2020. Regrettably, uncertainty around health concerns has made it unviable to send our employees, and so we have made the difficult decision to withdraw attendance. Stay tuned for Epic news and more through other channels.”

Pokémon International Challenge

Pokémon Sword and Shield 2020 International Challenge February live

Have you got what it takes to be a Champion Trainer? Then sign up for the 2020 International Challenge February (https://swordshield.pokemon.com/en-ca/international-challenge/february/) , an online Pokémon Sword and Shield competition.

It’s a Double Battle competition using the same rules as the current Championship Series format, and lasts from February 28th 00:00 UTC to March 1st 23:59 UTC.

Other Pokémon news:

  • Pokémon Masters new Shining Star Story Event now live, focusing on Sync Pair Elesa & Rotom
  • Gift codes for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX are available
  • New update for Pokémon Rumble Rush announced for March 4
    • Welcome Gifts update for Weeks 2 to 4
    • Socket Plus item increases number of Power Gear sockets from one to two
    • Adds Battle Royale, an auto battle tournament for four teams of three Pokémon
    • New titles can be earned from Battle Royale
    • Bosses can sometimes be replaced by rare Pokémon
    • Poké Glam decoration for Pokémon
    • Poké Diamonds spending perks
    • New Swap Shop items
  • Japanese trailer for Pokémon the Movie Coco, shows Ash and Pikachu meeting Coco
  • New Mythical Pokémon ‘Zarude’ from Pokémon the Movie: Coco to appear in Pokémon Sword and Shield

What Else Happened Today?

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

Who developed Tales from the Borderlands alongside Gearbox?

Answer: Telltale Games!

A looter-shooter like Borderlands wasn’t exactly the obvious choice for the Telltale treatment: the crude humour and decidedly systemic gameplay of Borderlands just didn’t seem to have a lot of hooks for a choice-driven narrative.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a match made in heaven and the story about con artist Fiona and office drone Rhys searching for a vault is a bit of a classic.

The game is hard to get a hold of these days digitally since Telltale shut down in 2018 and many of their games have been removed from stores like Steam. While LCG Entertainment picked up the smoldering ruins of Telltale, it’s still not clear how many of their games they will bring back – so your best bet is probably to find a used physical copy.

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Simon Priest, Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, and Jamie Davey.