Baldur’s Gate 3Patch 7 makes a ton of changes to the game, but the most important ones have a much bigger effect on the core experience than most of the smaller tweaks do.Baldur’s Gate 3’s numbered patches have always packed in bug fixes, optimization improvements, improvements to awkward scripting, and more, helping to shore up the game in areas that aren’t urgent enough to require hotfixes.
The changes that get top billing are ones that truly overhaul the game, opening up new avenues of play and answering long-standing community requests. While some planned and requested features are still waiting in the wings for future updates —a photo mode being one great example— Patch 7 cleans up some of the most critical areas where the game still had room for improvement.
10New Idle Animations Add Some Life
The world ofBaldur’s Gate 3feels surprisingly alive, an experience helped by the presence of complex idle animations for many characters. As recorded in the patch notes available on the offficialBaldur’s Gate 3website, Patch 7 adds a few more into the mix, addressing both party members in camp and the way that a few NPCs go about their usual tasks elsewhere.
New Baldur’s Gate 3 Update Just Changed The Game Forever
Patch 7 is one of the most highly anticipated updates to Baldur’s Gate 3 since launch. It’s now live for PC players only - here’s what to expect.
Fan-favorite vampiric rogue Astarion gets some new idle animations, reducing the amount of time that he’ll spend reading a book. Minsc also benefits from a new one, and Lae’zel and Karlach get some fixes to previously awkward implementations. Abdirak and the chefs at Jannath’s Estate are another couple of characters singled out for improvements, and companions in Wild Shape won’t perform human idle animations anymore.
9Honour Mode Rules Join Custom Mode
Honour Mode additions like Legendary Actions can arguably be seen as straight upgrades to the game, but not everyone wants to experience the overall grueling difficulty and punishment of permanent Game Overs just to enjoy these perks. It was previously possible to continue Honour Mode runs as Custom games after dying, but the Honour Mode rule options weren’t available when starting up a Custom Mode game.
Patch 7 officially incorporates those rules into Custom Mode, offering a convenient way to enjoy some interesting challenges without the commitment. A number of fixes to Custom Games using Honour Mode rules have also been implemented, ensuring that they’re kept clearly distinct in the game.
8Alfira Becomes A Temporary Party Member
PlayingBaldur’s Gate 3as a Dark Urge Origin character might be the best way to experience the story, and one unique part of the Dark Urge narrative is the plotline involving Alfira. This tiefling bard requests to join the party in Act One, but — spoiler warning — ends up dying at the hands of an impulse that the Dark Urge can’t control.
Previously,Alfira never actually got to join the partyproper, dying in camp the night of her request to join.Patch 7 actually adds Alfira as a true temporary member, giving players even more of a chance to get attached to the character before ruining everything. The official patch notes clarify that the change doesn’t make it possible to keep her around as a permanent party member, an idea that some fans ended up getting a little too excited about.
7New Dialogue & Reactivity Improves Immersion
Patch 7 doesn’t overhaul core scenes or rewrite huge swaths of dialogue, but it does tweak and add a lot of individual bits, a change that the patch notes refer to as “dott[ing] some dialogue options and voiced lines into a handful of dialogues across the game.” The main intent is in cleaning up awkward transitions and ensuring that things that should elicit reactions do so, a goal helped by some other changes to reactivity outside of dialogue.
New Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7 Dialogue Highlights A Necessary Plot Hole
The new Baldur’s Gate 3 patch has added many little interactions to further flesh out the already deep characters but highlights a plot hole.
Key Patch 7 dialogue additions include a reaction from Karlach if Dammon ends up dying and some changes to the conversation about ceremorphosis with Gale.A lot of bugs involving dialogue triggers also get fixes, both in terms of things that weren’t popping up when they were supposed to and vice versa.
6Cinematics Get Fixes & Improvements
Baldur’s Gate 3’s cutscenes and character interactions have always batted well above the average for motion capture animation in games, and patches have been continually making improvements to up the level of immersion. Patch 7 tweaks “facial expression and emotion across companion dialogues,“making a special note of fixes to the playable character’s facial animations during kissing cinematics.
Patch 7 also mentions improvements to camera shots, mocap animations, staging, shots, and lighting, so it’s safe to say that a lot is getting cleaned up across the board. The changes should serve to fix awkward or bugged scenes and elevate ones that were already solid, delivering a more engaging presentation of the story than ever.
5Split-Screen Receives A Rework
Baldur’s Gate 3is fully committed to the co-op experience, including the increasingly uncommon option to play the game in split-screen. This traditionally divided the screen straight down the middle for two players, significantly cutting the viewable real estate but making it possible to enjoy a multiplayer campaign with only one copy.
Patch 7 reworks split-screen to be dynamic, meaning that the two halves of the screen merge when the playable characters are close. It’s a feature that’s proved popular in games like the variousLEGOtie-in titles, and it can make for a much more immersive experience inBaldur’s Gate 3, where the party is likely to stick together in many scenarios.Baldur’s Gate 3developer Larian Studios previously featured dynamic split-screen in theDivinity: Original Singames, so it’s nice to see it make a return.
4Honour Mode Gets More Legendary Actions
Legendary Actions give bosses extra power and pizzazz inBaldur’s Gate 3’s challenging Honour Mode, allowing them to interrupt the turn order with unique and sometimes devastating moves.Patch 7 further expands the roster, granting Legendary Actions to a number of bosses that previously had noneand adding a second Legendary Action to a couple of lucky foes.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7 New Boss Updates Are Bad News For Honour Runs
Honour Mode fans will seriously need to buckle down if they want to make it through the new trials introduces in Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7.
The bosses that benefit from the changes are the bulette, Malus Thorm, Ch’r’ai Tska’an, Ch’r’ai Har’rak, and Ptaris, so it’s worth being extra careful in those fights to avoid the crushing defeat of a permanent Honour Mode Game Over. Setting aside Legendary Actions, Dror Ragzlin gets a new spell to call on the help of spiders, and the bulette is even more of a tank thanks to a condition called Diamond Scales.
3The Mod Manager Makes Mods Easy
Downloading and installing mods forBaldur’s Gate 3has previously relied on third-party solutions, a process that could be a bit alienating for newcomers and inconvenient for everyone. While sites like Nexus Mods make the process just about as simple as possible, there’s no beating an official solution when it comes to ease of access.
Patch 7 adds an official in-game mod manager toBaldur’s Gate 3, making it possible to do everything from browsing mods to deactivating unused ones within the game application itself. Multiplayer parties can also sync up their installed mods through the manager to ensure compatibility across the party. For those who want to casually browse officially approved mods while the game is closed, they can also be accessed on the officialBaldur’s Gate 3website ormod.io.
2New Evil Endings Make Wicked Deeds Exciting
Baldur’s Gate 3offers a lot of ways to be evil, but they didn’t always feel like they had payoffs as big as opting for traditional heroics. Although it makes sense that certain subplots and valuable rewards end up being lost to a path of destruction, the lack of unique endings for different dark approaches ultimately felt underwhelming after finishing an evil campaign.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Evil Playthrough: 15 Early-Game Choices For An Evil Party
Those looking for an evil campaign in Baldur’s Gate 3 can start making wicked choices from the start. Here are the best early decisions for a villain.
In Patch 7, 13 new cinematics enter the mix, significantly increasing the likelihood of an evil party getting a conclusion that feels like a true result of their actions. Obviously, the Dark Urge benefits from the additions, with a memorable new ending showcasing the character’s true power and the dark path they can set the world on. It’s not just for the Dark Urge, however, as every Origin character who tosses aside any real attempt at morals now has something unique.
1The Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit Enhances Modding
The new mod manager inBaldur’s Gate 3is a nice perk, but the real future of mods lies in theaddition of theBaldur’s Gate 3Toolkit, an official solution for mod creation based on Larian’s own tools. Although it has certain limitations, the toolkit makes it easier to add new character options, redesign cosmetics, tweak the user interface, and more. There’s no official level editing support, but a Toolkit Unlocked mod available from Siegfre on Nexus Mods opens even more doors.
The Toolkit is an appropriate successor to the Divinity Engine modding solution for theDivinity: Original Singames, and with the enormous popularity ofBaldur’s Gate 3, it’s sure to see a lot of use. Larian has provided tutorials for creating basic mods of each supported type onmod.io, a relatively straightforward process that still requires a learning curve for those new toBaldur’s Gate 3modding.
Source:Baldur’s Gate 3,mod.io (1,2)
Baldur’s Gate 3
Developed and published by Larian Studios, Baldur’s Gate 3 is an upcoming role-playing game set to release in August of 2023. Players will create a character to embark on a large-scale journey and can do so solo or cooperatively with a friend. Combat is a turn-based style this time around.
