Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has finally detailed what fans can expect from the long-awaited Patch 7, and teased that it is not the game’s final update.
In a post on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam page, Larian outlined everything coming up in Patch 7, due out in September. Highlights include split-screen updates, brand new cinematics for evil endings, plenty of bug fixes, and official modding tools.
In now trademark Larian fashion, it’s had fun with the patch notes, below. Here’s a snippet: “In the words of Michelangelo, no great work of art is ever finished, and so too is our approach to the art of snogging.”
Baldur's Gate 3 is Larian's enormously successful Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game that blew critics and players alike away upon its release in August 2023. Since then, Larian has issued a number of updates that have improved and added to the game. But do not expect a Baldur's Gate 4 from the studio, which recently admitted that it won so many awards it began to affect development. Larian has walked away from Baldur's Gate 3 DLC, a potential sequel, and Dungeons & Dragons in general to work on brand new games of its own. Indeed Larian boss Swen Vincke has already started to tease one of them.
Game#52: Jul 25, 2024
Game#52: Jul 25, 2024
To start:
...try asking a question that can be answered with a "Yes" or "No".
Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7 Patch Notes (Pre-Launch)
Split Screen Updates
Dynamic split screen mode is incoming! With our next update, friends will no longer be eternally confined to their side of the screen - because the power of friendship transcends all obstacles, including screen partitions.
When playing in co-op, you’ll now have the option to have split screens merge into a single screen when you near one another. You can access this directly from the HUD and within the game settings, both in and out of combat.
Honour Mode Improvements
We’re continuing to make improvements to combat in Honour Mode too. With Patch 7, even more creatures have been bestowed additional Legendary Actions, including the bulette, everyone’s favorite neighborhood surgeon, Malus Thorm, and githyanki Ch'r'ai Tska'an, Ch'r'ai Har'rak, and Ptaris.
Dror Ragzlin will now also be able to use a new spell called Arachnid Compulsion to rally the spiders that reside in the nearby pit to fight the real enemy - you.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Modding Toolkit
With this update also comes our official modding toolkit! Come September, you'll be able to load up your game with a range of new game mods, and even try your hand at making some yourself.
We recommend giving our Modding FAQ a look for more information on what modding support means for Baldur’s Gate 3.
We’re currently working with Baldur’s Gate 3 Mod Authors during our Closed Alpha, who have been busy testing out the toolkit. To find out what some of the Mod Authors have been working on during the Closed Alpha, keep reading!
The Toolkit itself will give you everything you need to edit or create entirely new content, including:
- Items - Equipment like weapons and armours, consumables, and miscellaneous items.
- Cosmetics - Including different hair, beards, and other textures.
- Classes and Subclasses - Creating new variants or modifying existing ones to edit abilities, powers, and skills.
- Races - These can be created and edited to determine overall appearance, as well as their individual powers and abilities.
- Dice Skins - You’ll also have the ability to edit or redesign the appearance of your dice skins!
- User Interface - Including extensions and restyling of the game UI.
- Quality of Life Improvements - Such as mods that edit or improve gameplay that don’t rely on unsupported elements.
Evil Endings
And, of course, Patch 7 will also be bringing several new cinematics that offer your more evil playthroughs a grander finale!
From avatar Origin characters, including the Dark Urge, to the multiple different pathways that you can take as your own player character, each new cinematic is yours to discover through nefarious means.
While we don’t want to give everything away just yet, you can feast your eyes on the teasers below - and be on the lookout for more heading your way soon!
Dark Urge Bug Fixes
Along with the new evil ending cinematics coming this patch, we’ve introduced a number of improvements and bug fixes for our Dark Urge players - ironing out camera pops, missing inspiration, VFX, and a few other issues.
For instance, a bug has now been fixed where combat sometimes fails to trigger in the event that you decide to murder one of your companions as the Dark Urge and attack the party. This will now lead to combat with the rest of the gang. And Minthara will now respond accordingly if you’ve been stripped of Bhaal’s influence.
We may have also let a certain bard now join the party as a controllable character if there’s an empty slot, temporarily, of course.
“But will we be able to kiss Gortash?” we hear you plead. “We want to kiss Gortash!”
Listen, he’s a complicated guy who’s busy contemplating the minutia of death cult office politics. Babygurl doesn’t have time to kiss.
Origin Character Bug Fixes
This update will also see improvements made to some cinematics, endgame dialogues, and Origin characters - specifically things like clipping issues, a couple of broken triggers for quests, dialogues, and romances, the odd case of retrograde amnesia, and persistent exclamation marks.
Oh, and the Blade of Frontiers will no longer absent-mindedly swing his sword mere inches from the aorta of shorter races who try to recruit him.
Let’s look at some of the highlights!
Wyll Highlights
Patch 7 includes a heap of fixes for Wyll, ranging from improvements to his dialogue reactivity to fixes for romance scenes.
If you’ve experienced issues triggering the romance scene with Wyll, this update will fix that. Should your relationship be headed in that direction, the cutscene in question will now trigger when you speak to Wyll at camp before your Long Rest.
A bug that had been preventing his romance greeting from triggering has also been fixed, so players in Act III who have a stable, loving, and committed relationship with Wyll will now see his romance greeting triggering correctly.
We’ve fixed Wyll’s dialogue reactivity during the epilogue for partnered players who have either joined Karlach in the Hells or Lae'zel in the rebellion, and we also determined there simply weren’t enough opportunities to kiss Wyll during the epilogue. This update rectifies that with the option to ask for a kiss in more paths of Wyll’s epilogue dialogue.
And if you're in holographic form during the epilogue, he’ll no longer automatically assume he's talking to Lae'zel, which was weird.
Astarion Highlights
In Patch 7, we’ve made improvements to the facial animations of your character during some kissing cinematics, including with the ascended Astarion.
We’ve also made tweaks to how Origin characters react within certain cutscenes, to enhance their emotional impact. For example, companions will show Astarion more empathy when he loses his ability to withstand sunlight.
Lae’zel Highlights
Lae’zel will now wait a little longer at her recruitment site if you tell her you’ll be returning. And once she’s set up at camp, she will also cycle through more varied idle animations.
This update will also put an end to an annoying issue where resurrecting Lae'zel on the beach in Act I would cause her to appear in the Party Line but not in the world, blocking you from leaving Act I.
Karlach Highlights
Along with some more general fixes for Karlach, she will now react to Dammon if she finds him dead after he has told her that he can help her.
That sketchy fade-to-black that follows her final scene in Avernus, which also unintentionally gave you a very brief glimpse of the region in gameplay mode, was a visual bug that has also been fixed.
The dialogue block caused by choosing to stay with a different companion the morning after your second romance scene with Karlach is no more.
Also, she’ll no longer brush the shaved side of her head during her camp idle animation.
Wrong side, Karlach.
Gale Highlights
With a few tweaks to camera angles and fixes to animation pops, repeated dialogue, and missing VFX, we’ve polished up Gale and his scenes and further refined his donation UI.
That panel that opens when donating magical items to Gale? This will now show all items eligible for donation - including those on your person, your party’s inventories, and your Traveller’s Chest.
This is part of the work that began with Hotfix #16 to improve the donation UI and update a player’s ability to access certain quest-related items, which has now been completed. We’re reinstating the intended behaviour that was removed in Hotfix #17 as a temporary bug fix to missing UI functionality. So if you now deny Gale a magic item three times in a row with magical items either on your person, your party's inventories, or now from your Traveller’s Chest, he will leave your party.
Alternatively, selecting “I’m not giving you anything. Not now, not ever” will still cause Gale to leave your party forever.
We’ve also patched up a bug that was preventing the final dialogue between Gale and Mystra from triggering, as well as a scene in the endgame that would cut off before you could kiss.
Shadowheart Highlights
In addition to fixing a few of her animation bugs, this update fixes a number of quest issues for Shadowheart.
A bug that saw the Spear of Night either not being received, or being spoken about as if it hadn’t already been acquired, is no more. Another bout of amnesia has also been fixed, in which Shadowheart occasionally thought Viconia was still alive after killing her. The 'Daughter of Darkness' quest should also now close properly if you choose to surrender Shadowheart to Viconia.
And yes, we’ve tweaked a few kissing scenes for her too, fixing a broken romance cutscene that should have triggered after giving Shadowheart the Idol of Shar, and a kissing animation that will no longer kick in before the dialogue option is chosen. We’ve also polished up the appearance of neck kissing. In the words of Michelangelo, no great work of art is ever finished, and so too is our approach to the art of snogging.
Party Banter Improvements
Prior to this update, party banter between companion characters was limited to the characters controlled by a single player. In Patch 7, multiplayer parties will support banter between characters assigned to different players.
This patch also resolves issues that had been rendering some romance party banters inaccessible while adventuring.
A closed beta for Patch 7 is set for July 22. “With all these bug fixes, updates to gameplay, and new features, we want to make sure we haven’t broken anything or introduced something that will make your computer explode,” Larian joked. Registration to test the patch is now open on Steam.
And finally, Larian teased there’s more to come from Baldur’s Gate 3, with Patch 7 now not the final update. Crossplay is still in the works, as is a photo mode.
“It’s hard to believe it’s almost been an entire year since we launched Baldur’s Gate 3. But the journey isn’t over yet,” Larian said.
“Patch 7 won’t be the final update for Baldur’s Gate 3. We still have a few things up our sleeve - including many community-requested features like crossplay and a photo mode to capture and share your unforgettable moments. And we’re working on a host of other enhancements, from gameplay tweaks and quality-of-life improvements to bug fixes and performance optimizations.
“We’ll keep you looped in on when those are likely to hit a little further down the line. In the meantime, stay in touch with us on our socials, stay tuned, and don’t forget to wear sunscreen.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
