Baldur’s Gate 3’s Delayed Patch Notes Suggest You’ve All Been Eating Too Much Delicious, Irresistible Soap

 

The latest patch for Baldur’s Gate 3 was supposed to go live in closed beta yesterday, but Larian decided to give it a little more time due to bugs. Most notably, a bug that prevented passive rolls, such as those that detect traps, from working.

Luckily, if you haven’t signed up to participate in the beta yet, you now have more time to do so. Scroll down a bit on the RPG’s Steam page and click the “Request Access” button.

The other bonus is that they took the opportunity to publish a blog that details some of the tantalizing changes, sort of like a delicious bar of soap on a rope. Wait. What? No. Soap is not meant to be eaten, says the killjoy Larian. That’s why they made some of the ablution items more foolproof. “We’ve noticed that some of you have been getting hiccup bubbles, so the act of washing with soap and sponges is now called ‘Using’ instead of ‘Consuming.’”

In total, Patch 7 features “over 1,000 fixes and improvements,” with the blog itself detailing only a select few highlights. The biggest items here are additional Evil Ending cinematics, split-screen tweaks, and the modding toolkit. Aside from that, here are a few personal picks. (I say “picks” – my actual preference would be for Larian to quit and go take a Milky Way and a nap so I can start a new game.)

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Honor Mode, the game’s ultra-durable, single-save ox gauntlet, will now be selectable in a custom game. In terms of specifics, the hobgobbo boss Dror Ragzlin will now attempt to befriend the denizens of the Spider Pit with a new spell called Arachnid Compulsion, if you can manage to take him down.

For your companions, Karlach will “no longer brush the shaved side of his head” and Astarion might occasionally do something other than read books around camp. If you’re too busy being extremely evil to care about friendship, there will be more reactivity dialogue and Dark Urge narration lines. But I’ve already played a game of Dark Urge! I groan, before realizing that I haven’t played Dark Urge which turns out to be a good game. Or a dark urge that specifically tries to make Minsc’s life as miserable as possible. Larian please.

There’s also a bit more help with the final battle. I can understand someone getting a bit tired of the “alliances you made during your adventure join together for a big dramatic fight later” thing, but I’m not sure anyone’s ever come up with a better solution to let you take advantage of your side trips in a responsive and satisfying way? I’m a fan, anyway. Now the Kuo-Toa fish can get involved (unless they all die in the first act), and the Gondians will add a heavy Steel Watcher.

Performance optimizations are also planned. “This will be most noticeable in areas with a large number of NPCs (like Lower Town) and will reduce the maximum memory usage when loading levels for the first time,” the blog post reads. “This will also be noticeable when managing a large amount of loot (such as transferring everything from a camp chest to a character’s inventory).”

Finally, and this is the stupidest, you will no longer be able to ruin Shar’s Leap of Faith challenge by “just clicking on the final platform and letting your character find their way to it”. Boo. Boo. Boo (boo).

There’s no word on when the patch will be available to everyone, but as mentioned, you can sign up for the beta on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam page. I’m very serious about Larian winding down so I can finally play the game again, but it’s definitely impressive to see the game continue to receive such major updates, especially since they’re also working on two other games at the moment.