While Baldur’s Gate 3 players must wait for Patch 7’s closed beta to arrive later this week, Larian Studios has outlined some of its highlights. We already know about the dynamic split screen and evil endings, while the Mod Manager allows you to install user-created mods in-game.
However, players can enable Honour Mode mechanics in Custom Mode. If you want to try out all the different Legendary Actions of enemies, including the new ones coming in Patch 7, you can do so without permadeath. Video options have also been revisited with drop-downs for Upscaling Type and Mode, and the Reactions UI now allows setting the desired reactions and confirming them.
When giving magic items to Gale, you can also provide them directly from the storage chest (with equipped loot helpfully denoted). These are all in addition to numerous fixes and improvements. Check out some of the patch notes below and full details here, though beware of spoilers.
Patch 7 arrives in September for Baldur’s Gate 3. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.
Patch 7 Highlights
HIGHLIGHTS
- Introducing ‘Evil Endings’: Brand new cinematic endings for the truly villainous playthroughs.
- Added our very own Mod Manager, which lets you browse, install, and use mods created by the community.
- Revamped split screen gameplay: When playing on split screen, the two halves of the screen will now dynamically merge together when player characters come close to each other in-game, and dynamically split back up when the characters move apart. This revamp comes alongside many other improvements and polishes to improve the overall split screen experience.
Honour Mode Combat
- If Dror Ragzlin finds himself inside the spider pit, he’ll try his best to befriend the spiders residing there with a new spell called Arachnid Compulsion so they can band together to fight the real enemy – you.
- The Bulette has a new condition called Diamond Scales and a new Legendary Action called Shredding Scales.
- Malus Thorm has a new Legendary Action called Grasping Appendage.
- Added a new aura and spell for Spectators: Panicked Sentinel and Ocular Nightmare, respectively.
- Ch’r’ai Tska’an, the leader of the githyanki ambush in Act II, has a new Legendary Action called Soul Sacrifice.
- Ch’r’ai Har’rak, the githyanki leader at the Knights of the Shield Hideout, has a new Legendary Action called Tu’narath’s Embrace.
- Ptaris has a new Legendary Action called Ptarian Dogma.
UI
- Revised and reorganised the in-game video options to be more logical and robust. You now have an Upscaling Type drop-down, an Upscaling Mode drop-down, and an Upscaling Sharpness slider, followed immediately by the options that are affected by them.
- Updated the Reactions UI so that you only have to toggle the Reactions you want to use and then confirm them. (This saves you from having to select ‘Do not react’ multiple times!)
- Added a new Equipment Options menu to the Character Sheet on controller.
- The panel that opens to ‘Donate’ magic items to Gale will now also show items in your Traveller’s Chest. It also now indicates which items are currently equipped.
- We noticed some of you hiccoughing bubbles, so the action for washing yourself with soap and sponges is now called ‘Use’ instead of ‘Consume’.
- Fixed your player character’s name getting reverted to ‘Custom’ during Character Creation if you moved on to create your Dream Guardian and then went back to edit the player character again.
- Fixed the wrong spell Ability showing up when selecting a Feat during Level Up.
Art
- Added a new loading screen in Act III, showing the busy streets of Baldur’s Gate.
- Fixed the skirt part of the Adamantine Splint Armour missing for female dwarves.
- Fixed the Adamantine Scale Mail clipping on large male characters.
Gameplay
- You can now start Custom Mode games using Honour Mode mechanics when starting a new playthrough. You’ll be able to do this via the ‘Ruleset’ dropdown.
- The kuo-toa that promised to build you an army will now support you in the final battle. Unless they all died in Act I.
- The help that the Gondians promised for the final battle will now arrive in the form of a friendly Steel Watcher. Apologies from Zanner Toobin for the delay.
- The hair colour options in Character Creation will now remain accessible after you choose the bald hairstyle, so that you can continue fiddling around with eyebrow colours.
- Overhead dialogues that support multiple player characters can now involve characters assigned to different players. (They were limited to characters controlled by a single player until now.) This means that there will be more banter among player characters in multiplayer games.
- Group Hide will no longer affect summons that aren’t linked to the group in the Party Line.
- Changed the behaviour for selecting camp supplies for a Long Rest. When selecting camp supplies that are stacked, the game now only takes what it needs from the stack.
- You can no longer cheese the Leap of Faith trial at the Gauntlet of Shar by just clicking the final platform and letting your character pathfind their way there. Shar threatened to smite us if we didn’t fix this one.
- Fixed a bug where resurrecting Lae’zel on the beach in Act I would cause her to appear in the Party Line but not in the world, preventing you from leaving Act I.
- Patched up some savegames where Gale still had his Necrotic Aura when he shouldn’t on load.
- Fixed Minthara’s body sometimes turning invisible on the Level Up screen. (We sorta liked the floating-head-and-hands look, but hey.)
Animation
- Astarion now has idle animations at camp that aren’t just him reading a book.
- Added a new idle animation for Minsc at camp – Boo may or may not have taught him some tai chi.
- Karlach will no longer brush the shaved side of her head.