Their development of BG3 is mirroring that of DOS2, at least, where content additions come few & far between but bug fixes come out fairly regularly. I wish it was going faster, but it is what it is. Stability and performance have been great since the middle of last year, when I gave Sorcerer a quick whirl just to see how it ran on my new hardware. There's another major update coming pretty soon, but still no news on a full release AFAIK.
Release date was moved up from 31 August to 3 August,
with a few days early access to pre-orders for Act 1. Current EA saves won't carry over to the full release,
but those in the immediate pre-launch access phase will. It's available to anyone who has the digital deluxe edition. Following Larian's tradition from DOS1 and 2, anyone who already owns the game gets a complimentary DD upgrade. Details in the last
community update.
Highlights:
- New races/subraces (dragonborn, half-orc, duergar) to complete the list of those found in the 5e PHB
- Monk base class, completing the list of PHB base classes
- All base classes (incl. monk) have 3 subclasses, except for Paladin (3+1 in the form of Oathbreaker), Cleric (7 domains) and Wizard (8 schools)
- Level cap set at 12 (was originally planned as 10, but anyone familiar with 5e knows that's a cockblock b/c 11 is a power spike)
- New origin story character (a tiefling barbarian, originally a planned recruitable companion)
- Total of 37 feats (IIRC the 5e PHB has 42, and some of them aren't applicable in BG3 like mounted combatant)
- About 600 total spells & abilities (excluding upcast variants, approximately triple the amount available in DOS2)
- Nearly 200 hours total of cinematics & cinematic sequences (which you can't see the entirety of in a single run)
Of the content above, some of it is a little homebrewed (they specifically say that monk has been modified a fair bit to remain competitive with the other classes) and not all of it is from the PHB. Some parts of it--like College of Swords bard and Gloom Stalker ranger--are from other source books. The absence of some things are a bit obvious, like Warlock pact options (currently, only pact of the chain is in the game)
and multiclassing though they have confirmed multiclassing which is great. Given the design of one of the companions, the fact they don't have Pact of the Blade is still baffling to me. He's a warlock with the word "blade" in his self-proclaimed moniker. With the way he's presented you could reasonably assume he's a College of Swords bard or Swashbuckler rogue.
I'd like to see a modified form of ritual casting that fits the pacing of the video game setting (e.g. takes 2-4 rounds to cast instead of several minutes & is interruptible by common combat events e.g. knockdown, damage vs concentration check) which would enable a lot of utility spellcasting that you simply won't see when a spell slot tax is always imposed. It would also trivialize the addition of Pact of the Tome for Warlocks, as ritual casting is almost always a core mechanic of the pact.
Is it obvious that I'm a bit miffed about warlocks in BG3? It's like they want to pigeonhole the class that was already pigeonholed the most from previous editions. The joke is that PHB warlocks spend every round of combat saying "I cast eldritch blast," which is mostly true because of their severely limited spell slots and the high opportunity cost of utility vs. combat invocations, but every video game adaptation of DnD has a heavy combat focus and BG3 is no exception. There's no DM to fudge dice for a party that puts in the work for RP and deliberately makes sub-par builds for flavor. "I cast eldritch blast" is your life as a warlock in BG3, you absolutely must build for it and your only utility for the party is going to be a high charisma score (could've just played a sorcerer or bard instead).
[Edit]
An interview with an Italian outlet confirmed the presence of pact of the blade for Warlock, and they rolled certain hexblade subclass features into it (specifically the extra attack feature, but probably the charisma to attack/damage rolls will be there as well). This likely meshes into their mentioning of a full rework for the warlock companion during the last livestream before launch. They've also nixed ability score requirements for multiclassing, and added some items that function like gauntlets of ogre strength (i.e. sets your strength to a specific score, unless you already meet or exceed that score, then they do nothing) for other ability scores, like an item that already exists for intelligence in the early access. They're also changing the scaling of penalties for multiclassing caster classes, most likely with regards to spells known/spell slots available, with the stated intent of making it less punishing to multiclass from one caster class to another caster class.