Unfortunately for anyone wanting to get stuck into the full release of Baldur's Gate 3 as quickly as possible, Larian Studios won't be able to offer pre-loading for the release on August 3. As the studio explained in a tweet, this absence is due to a limitation on Steam's side that disallows pre-loading for games with an early access release.

As Larian explains, switching to pre-load ahead of the game's release would break the game for anyone still playing in early access. For what it's worth, early access players won't have it any easier when it comes to downloading the full game, as they have been instructed to to delete all saves and mods, and uninstall the game before the full version releases. This means they'll have to say goodbye to characters they may have been playing with since the initial early access release way back in 2020--though Larian promises starting from scratch with the full game will be worth it.

Baldur's Gate 3 isn't a small game, with PC Gamer reporting that the final game package that will need to be downloaded on Thursday is around 122GB. The game will drop at the same time for all PC players, with no early unlocks available. Check out everything you need to know about the full PC release here.