Baldur's Gate 3

So, what's next for Baldur's Gate 3?

"Dark endings usually make the music colours go dark too. Here is a snippet of music from one of the upcoming new end scenes." - Bobby, Composer & Music Director.

Learning from our journey with you

Looking to the future

“I don’t know if we’re going to pull it off, but looking at our narrative, visual and gameplay plans, I think what we’re working on now will be our best work ever. I get excited like a kid watching the key imagery, want to show it to everyone now and grumble in frustration at having to wait until it’s actually all working. Yes, it’s hype but it’s hype because it really looks and feels good.” - Excited Swen, April 17th 2024.

FIXES

• Fixed a rare code crash when loading the Act I region.
  
• Fixed a rare code crash when hovering over enemies.
  
• Fixed a potential crash when loading a savegame made while trading.
  
• Fixed Us not wanting to leave the party after the tutorial, causing some more cases where Short Rest could get blocked. Also made further fixes to Us being in the party when it shouldn't be.
  
• Fixed item splitting not working in trade when moving items from your companions' inventories.
  
• Fixed the context menu not showing trade actions on items that are in a companion's inventory.
  

FIXES

• Fixed a crash that could occur after the cinematic that plays when transitioning from Act II to Act III.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing you from taking a Short Rest when having added and dismissed Us with a companion party member and then loaded certain savegames.
  
• Fixed Us appearing at camp and near other waypoints when that didn't make sense.
  
• Fixed an issue introduced in Hotfix 21 causing reduced performance on Mac.
  

CRASHES AND BLOCKERS

• Fixed a bug causing you to get stuck in Lae'zel's recruitment dialogue if you saved halfway through the dialogue and then loaded that savegame.
  
• Fixed a potential rare crash related to our particle system.
  
• Fixed a crash when throwing the Black Pudding Platter.
  
• Fixed a crash during Character Creation.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when selling a container with items in it, buying it again, and then selling it again.
  
• Fixed a rare crash related to VFX material loading.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing you from equipping items and using spells because an item kept being equipped.
  
• Optimised Poltergeist auras to reduce memory usage and prevent an out-of-memory crash.
  

UI

• Fixed an issue where selling all wares didn't remove the proper gold amount from the trader inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug letting you generate gold by buying multiple items but only paying for one of them if you dragged the items into a container.
  
• Fixed a bug letting you 'buy' a stack of items for free when dragging the stack into a container and using the item splitter.
  
• Fixed equipped items blocked by shapeshifting being tradable, allowing you to get paid even if the items don't transfer to the trader's inventory.
  

SCRIPTING

• Fixed clubs from the Moonrise Towers Prison getting automatically equipped when you picked them up.
  
• Fixed a bug causing Nightsong to continuously gain and lose the Soul Caged condition if she had a condition that provided Immunity to being Incapacitated.
  
• Fixed Balthazar not finishing his turn when he is too far from the Colony ritual spot to reach it in one turn.
  
• Fixed a bug where a civilian would call for help and a group of Flaming Fists would appear, but instead of moving to the crime scene, they would just stand where they were spawned.
  

CODE AND GAMEPLAY

• Fixed a bug causing party members to be wrongly ungrouped and fixed savegames in this broken state.
  
• Fixed randomly occurring issues with dialogues, like repeating lines and options not showing up correctly.
  
• Fixed some characters missing their spell SFX when going from camp to the world.
  
• Fixed the bulette getting permanently stuck under the ground when you passed by in Turn-Based Mode.
  

CRASHES AND BLOCKERS

• Fixed a crash caused by the game trying to access the duration of a condition on a character with no conditions set.
  
• Fixed conditions sometimes trying to get their duration from the source entity instead of the target entity.
  
• Fixed some potential internal crashes on Xbox when suspending the game (e.g. when suspending the console or loading another game), causing it to reboot when you went back to it.
  

UI

• Improved the messaging for syncing and cross-saving by indicating when a cross-save sync has failed and adding an option to try again. Also prevented the saving and cross-saving messages from appearing for secondary local players.
  
• Voice chat will no longer overlap the minimap on split-screen.
  
• Fixed the 'Another Player Is Joining' pop-up not triggering while the host has a panel open on Xbox, potentially preventing the client from joining.
  

SCRIPTING

• Fixed an issue where legacy dialogue had been enabled unintentionally as part of another line of fixes, in which Minthara would seemingly end a relationship with Dark Urge players who had rejected Bhaal.
  
• Made Minthara promise to stop repeating her thoughts about Gale in Act III.
  
• Fixed a bug causing you to get perpetually stuck in a dangerous area if you triggered hostilities in the Emerald Grove and then left while it was still a dangerous area.
  
• Fixed a rare issue where dialogues would end suddenly when you went to kiss your romantic partner.
  
• Fixed a bug causing you to get stuck in combat with the enemies on top of Moonrise Towers if you found a way to sneak into the Mind Flayer Colony.
  

FIXES

• Fixed an issue that would cause vendors to initially display their current gold amount as zero.
  
• Fixed a crash when entering into bartering with a vendor. Hagglers rejoice!
  

Love Is in the Air

Every Whittle Helps: New Camp Animations & Improvements

Improvements and Fixes Galore

HIGHLIGHTS

• You can now dismiss a recruited companion from your party while speaking to the companion you want to replace them with.
  
  
• When a dialogue triggers automatically, the game will now try to prioritise your avatar character as the main speaker.
  
  
• Your partner now has a few different kisses! They're brand new, unique, and randomised - and we’ve also made improvements to how kisses look across the board, particularly for taller and shorter body types.
  
  
• Improved the cinematic scenes in the Elfsong Tavern to feel more intimate when you and your romance partner decide your future together after defeating the Netherbrain.
  
  
• Reworked the reflection scenes that take place after wrapping up the defeat of the Netherbrain for characters without romantic partners to better match the scenes for those who do have romantic partners, and to bridge the gap into the epilogue.
  
  
• Added a new cinematic scene to support the combat encounter that occurs after you choose whether to side with Nightsong at Sorcerous Sundries or not.
  
  
• If you sit on the stool in Shadowheart's camp corner, she will now react to you with a line based on your relation with her.
  
  
• Added new idle animations for some companions at camp, including:
  
  
  
  • Lae'zel: Studying a githyanki disc.
    
  • Minthara: Contemplating a skull, tending to mushrooms, expressing violence, adjusting her armour, plotting her future, and being bothered by the sun.
    
  • Jaheira: Sitting, kneeling and whispering to a rat messenger, and whittling.
    
  • Minsc: Cooking and shaving his head. (These are two separate animations. Although we wouldn't put it past him, he's not, in fact, cooking his head.)
    
  • Shadowheart: Polishing the Spear of Night.
    
  • Halsin: Whittling.
    
  
  
  
• If you started your game on a set difficulty, you can now switch to Custom Mode (except when already playing Honour Mode).
  
• Fixed an issue that would prevent travel between acts.
  
  
• Fixed an issue causing quicksaves to fail to upload to cross-saves.
  
  
• Characters in the epilogue camp party will now have fitting titles below their names.
  
  
• Fixed the Shield Bash and Rebuke of the Mighty passives not triggering Saving Throws.
  
  
• Added light bar colours for the DualSense controller on PC.
  
  
• If you romanced Lae'zel, grab a red dragon and saddle up - you can now join her in the rebellion against Vlaakith, even if you are not gith yourself.
  
  
• Fixed graphic settings not being applied for some 4k monitors.
  
  
• Fixed a crash on Xbox that would sometimes occur when starting or ending a game.
  

Gameplay

• You can now toggle off Repelling Blast as expected.
  
• If you Long Rest with only alcohol as camp supplies, you will now get the new Hungover condition for 10 turns.
  
• Auto-selecting your camp supplies before a Long Rest will use resources more optimally - sometimes you just don't feel like cooking.
  
• The Long Rest camp supply menu is now better at pulling supplies from inside containers in companion inventories. Stop hoarding the cheese, Wyll.
  
• Group Hide now works on all party members controlled by the player, including followers and summons.
  
• Made it possible to dismiss party members during camp nights. Also made it possible to recruit hirelings to a full party - they'll hang around at camp until you need them.
  
• You can now talk to the circus bard Medrash and get a short but enthusiastic response from him.
  
• The owlbear cub will no longer gobble up Auntie Ethel's Hair before you can take advantage of the bonus it grants.
  
• The Elixir of Hill Giant Strength now applies its effects when thrown.
  
• Creating harmful surfaces beneath NPCs will now trigger a crime reaction.
  
• Scratch can no longer equip certain weapons. Like the Everburn Blade.
  
• Added the option to scale the density of crowds on Xbox.
  
• As a quality-of-life improvement, the Pact Weapon condition now remains after a Long Rest.
  

Combat

• The Shambling Mound is now a fully-fledged Honour Mode boss,
  
• with brand new bespoke Legendary Actions and tuned-up abilities. Good luck.
  
• The drider and Dror Ragzlin have new Legendary Actions in Honour Mode!
  
• In Tactician Mode, the drider has a special Sanctuary, called Spindleweb Sanctuary, that erupts in a psychic explosion when the status condition ends. In addition, his Spindleweb Fanaticism aura will now debuff his enemies.
  
• In Tactician Mode, Dror Ragzlin's Leadership Aura will now also debuff his enemies.
  
• Jaheira could be in bad shape by the time she arrived at Moonrise Towers since she already had to fight. Now she's smart enough to heal up before she goes there, which we're hoping lets her last at least an additional second in combat.
  
• The Frightened condition applied by Ketheric's Dreadful Aspect will now correctly end if the combat with Ketheric ends before the condition does. (This will also fix other similar cases.)
  
• Improved combat AI pathfinding through dangerous surfaces and through steep terrain.
  

Flow and Scripting

• Increased the number of valid methods of knocking Minthara out to recruit her.
  
• Halsin no longer blames the goblins for his death in his Speak with Dead dialogue if he managed to get killed much later on.
  
• Fixed a case where the lanceboard scene between Raphael and Mol would never trigger because of the script being too defensive when checking Raphael's current in-game state.
  
• You can finally tell Halsin that you found that letter that was sent to Kagha.
  
• Wyll will react accordingly if you fail to save Ravengard from the Iron Throne when the pact with Mizora is broken.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing you from talking to Mayrina after the fight with the hag.
  
• Fixed an issue that could lead to the game being stuck on Flind's turn if another player entered combat with her while her dialogue was ongoing
  

UI

• The trade interface got a graphic overhaul, clarifying which character is bartering for the party, what their Persuasion score is, and how much of a discount they're getting for the trade. The feedback when bartering has also been improved to indicate the status of the offer.
  
• The whole party's inventory is now present in the trade interface, which doesn't require you to switch characters to sell their items from their inventories anymore.
  
• You can now change the size of text in books and other legible items in the Interface Options.
  
• Updated the interface visuals for the Options and Difficulty menus.
  
• Renamed the 'Class Passives' panel for sorcerers on level up to 'Metamagic' and added a description for it. This was to make the naming more precise, given that all the class passives for sorcerers are Metamagic and the main level up window already tells you that they're passives.
  
• Renamed the 'Camp Companions' button to 'Camp Inventories' to more clearly indicate what it does.
  
• Added the Custom Mode settings to the Lobby UI, giving you time to create your personalised experience while waiting for your friends. (And also giving you time to argue amongst yourselves while coming to a compromise.)
  
• Camp chests are now integrated into the Camp Inventories UI.
  
• Fixed incorrect button prompts and mappings showing for Switch Pro Controller on PC.
  
• Reverse-pickpocketing (planting things into others' inventories) should now work correctly on controller.
  
• Improved how the combat log indicates XP gain. Now, if everyone in the party gains XP from several different sources at the same time - like when you Fireball a bunch of rats - you'll get one entry in the combat log with the calculated total XP gained, rather than separate entries for each XP, clogging up the whole log.
  
• Added sub-sorting to throwable items on the Hotbar so the most recently picked-up items will appear first.
  

Writing

• When faced with certain choices after the Netherbrain is defeated, you can now tell Lae'zel to make her own decision.
  
• Added additional Avatar Karlach and Avatar Astarion reactivity within God Gale's dialogues in the epilogue, allowing them to request a cure for their conditions.
  
• Added some new lines to Minthara's epilogue dialogue to account for different paths where the player character has partnered up with her.
  
• Added some extra Narrator lines for the Dark Urge when interacting with Gortash in his office.
  
• Added new dialogues and reactivity for Lae'zel regarding the githyanki egg from Crèche Y'llek.
  
• If Gale is a mind flayer in the endgame when returning to Elysium with Mystra, she will now transform him back into a human.
  
• Rephrased some journal entries to account for NPCs being knocked out instead of killed.
  
• If you're romancing Shadowheart in Act II, she'll have more banter as you're walking around.
  

Cinematics

• You can now give Shadowheart a hug when she's crying after losing or saving her parents.
  
• Gale can now kiss your hand if you agree to marry him. This scene was also improved with a new intro and outro.
  
• Added a new version of the kissing scene with Astarion after he Ascends.
  

Sound

• Fixed Gortash's Speak with Dead dialogue missing its VO.
  
• Fixed the Main Menu audio not starting for several seconds on Xbox, and sometimes playing in the game.
  
• Fixed the Character Creation music not triggering until the tutorial.
  
• Fixed dice roll sounds playing if you have the 'Hide Failed Perception Rolls' setting enabled while exploring. We asked the narrator to quieten down when rolling the dice for your immersion.
  

PERFORMANCE AND CODE

• Fixed black and colourful visual artefacts sometimes appearing for 1 frame on PS5 when switching scenes or opening and closing UI windows.
  
• Increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files.
  
• Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don't exist in the game anymore.
  
• Guarded against crashes caused when certain character resources (Actions, Bonus Actions, Superiority Dice, etc.) were added and later removed by a mod or cheat engine.
  

GAMEPLAY AND COMBAT

• In Honour Mode, the aura of Cazador's Potent Mist Form now properly dissipates after he's no longer in Mist Form. Sorry!
  
• Fixed the camera sometimes zooming in while jumping or casting projectile spells.
  
• Fixed the ability to walk through open doors when you click beyond them from far away.
  
• Fixed Thieves' Tools in the camp chest or inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp not being accessible when lockpicking.
  

UI

• Safeguard Shield's Saving Throw modifier is now correctly reflected on the Character Sheet.
  

FLOW AND SCRIPTING

• Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don't offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you're abundantly clear that you don't plan on ever doing so.
  
• Fixed characters getting stuck 'in a story event', preventing you from controlling them, after getting killed in the fight with Grym.
  

• The cross-save functionality will no longer sync modded saves, as they cannot be accessed by console players.
  
• Added categories to the Waypoints list, grouping Waypoints by location.
  
• You will now be able to access certain quest-related items on the spot, even if they are currently in the camp chest or in the inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp.
  
• Added a couple of Potions of Animal Speaking to the Epilogue.
  
• Karlach will now get her scene in Avernus regardless of whether she's an avatar or a companion.
  
• Wyll will now follow Karlach to Avernus correctly.
  
• Fixed the Hide Helmet option resetting for companions after saving and loading.
  
• Cazador now has 3 variations of his Legendary Action depending on how many Ritual charges he has. The more charges he has, the more dangerous his Vampiric Swarm is.
  
• Fixed several issues with low resolution textures appearing after extended playtimes.
  
• Fixed a visual bug where certain doors would reappear briefly when destroyed.
  
• Fixed Gale's dialogue ending abruptly when asking him for a kiss. Enjoy the moment.
  

• Fixed a potential crash related to quickloading.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur when unloading and then loading a region.
  
• Fixed a crash when changing VSync settings.
  
• Fixed a crash when destroying the spiderweb under the Spider Matriarch.
  
• Fixed the potential cause of not being able to save the game (Error 701, crashing the game).
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen when showing a pop-up message after lockpicking an item.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing the grenade launchers during Gortash's fight to bypass Turn-Based Mode and deploy grenades in real-time, which could result in a crash. We call that cheating.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur when removing condition-based auras from modded savegames.
  
• Fixed a possible crash when getting the available party gold during a trade.
  
• Fixed some issues that could prevent savegames made under rare conditions from loading up.
  

• The Spectral Form passive is no longer hidden.
  
• Fixed Balthazar's Spectral Form not triggering when Balthazar succeeded in a Saving Throw but still got damaged.
  
• Fixed Auntie Ethel not using Weird Magic Surge when struck by Repelling Blast in Honour Mode.
  
• Fixed the scrying eyes' damage mitigation mechanic in Tactician Mode not working the first time they are damaged.
  
• In Tactician difficulty, Cazador now transforms into a unique mist form that threatens his foes with a necrotic aura.
  
• Ability Drain will not be able to reduce a target's ability below 1.
  
• Improved the way Legendary Resistance works, now only triggering when it is actually useful.
  

• Fixed Astarion not being available through the companion menu at camp if you sent him directly to camp during the recruitment dialogue.
  
• In Honour Mode, the Eggbearer condition is now also applied when the mummy owlbear is dead but the daddy owlbear is alive.
  
• Fixed an issue in Honour Mode where the damage from Smite spells wouldn't trigger items that activate when damaged.
  
• You can no longer trade with Grukkoh the bugbear via the dialogue button before you've, uh, caught his attention.
  
• Using a weapon that uses your Spellcasting Ability Modifier instead of the normal Ability Modifier will now choose the Spellcasting Ability with the highest value.
  
• Fixed Group Hide not working properly when a party character is Downed.
  
• Myrmidons' weapons cannot be looted from their bodies after Long Rest anymore.
  
• Fixed the Elemental Weapon, Magic Weapon, Heat Metal, and Daylight conditions persisting on the weapon after a Long Rest.
  
• Fixed an issue that would affect some players controlling more than one avatar, which caused several naked characters to appear over them after the first Dream Visitor dream.
  
• Fixed an issue where reconnecting to a multiplayer session would assign a player an avatar in Withers' Wardrobe without taking said avatar out of the wardrobe. They don't open from the inside!
  
• Stealing a couple hundred items in one go no longer results in the game becoming unresponsive for quite some time afterwards while it deals with your kleptomaniac overindulgence. It may still freeze for a short period while processing the inventory transfer, though.
  
• NPCs on the floor below you, can no longer 'see' you looting corpses up there.
  
• When handing back stackable stolen items (such as healing potions), you will no longer lose all of them, but only the number you stole.
  

• Fixed an issue preventing some players from advancing into Act III, looping them back to Act II.
  
• Barcus Wroot should now show up correctly at Last Light Inn if you have saved him from his previous predicaments.
  
• Fixed avatar Karlach being able to initiate the first romance scene with Lae'zel after proving her worth to Lae'zel, which should not be possible for her due to her engine still not being upgraded.
  
• Tweaked the trigger conditions for Lae'zel's initial romance dialogue after proving your worth to her so that it only triggers if the player controlling her has a single avatar. This is to avoid accidentally triggering the dialogue with an unintended avatar in case you have multiple.
  
• Fixed some wrong character behaviours likely introduced in Patch 4.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing some dialogue options with Alfira and Nadira from showing up.
  
• Fixed Auntie Ethel prematurely teleporting to Act III if you pick up her corpse in Act I.
  
• Gale is now less likely to lie to you about wanting to return the Crown of Karsus when making his decision in the endgame.
  
• Raphael will no longer make a surprise appearance during the Epilogue if you made a deal with him and then decided to kill him.
  
• Wyll will now appear during the initial Epilogue scene if he's the Blade of Avernus and does not have a partner.
  
• Fixed a couple of issues with Mizora's dialogue getting stuck.
  
• Fixed a blocker in the House of Hope in which Raphael wouldn't appear if he was Silenced in Sharess' Caress.
  
• Fixed a blocker where you were able to banish Hope while she's chained, preventing you from saving her.
  
• The avatar dismissal dialogue will now be closed if the user rejoins the session while it is still active.
  
• Duke Ravengard will now correctly hold the bars of his cell door while imprisoned in the Iron Throne instead of staying idle, seemingly unbothered by everything going on.
  
• Characters that are attacked while disappearing out of sight will now resume their disappearing after combat ends. Back to the shadows with you.
  

• Fixed an issue where switching between party members would cause performance to drop.
  
• Fixed a texture issue in Character Creation at Low and Medium settings.
  

• The proficiency bonuses on Explorer difficulty are now correctly accounted for in Character Creation.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the Level Up screen to display the incorrect HP gain when increasing Constitution.
  
• Fixed some instances where incorrect items would be selected when dragging them in the Trade menu.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented respeccing into a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer if you chose a spell that was already available from the Draconic Bloodline.
  
• The values in the Skill tooltips on the Level Up screen will now update when you add Expertise.
  
• Fixed the 'Can't control' warning not disappearing under certain circumstances.
  
• Fixed an issue that briefly prevented you from interacting with an item in the inventory if it had been unequipped or equipped previously with the X button.
  
• When a tutorial pop-up refers to an option in the shortcuts radial menu on controller, the option will now be highlighted.
  
• Fixed '(Empty)' sometimes briefly appearing next to an item's name when highlighting it on Xbox.
  
• Added descriptions for the different difficulty levels in the Additional Combat Mechanics options on Custom Mode.
  
• Fixed a caching issue in the radial menus. This could, for instance, cause some Disguise Self options to not appear after cancelling and returning to the spell.
  
• The lovely dark veins you get on your face when you become part-illithid now show up correctly in the Magic Mirror.
  
• Fixed surface names sometimes appearing above characters on controller.
  
• Increased the opacity of certain text boxes in the Reactions UI on controller to improve visibility.
  
• Fixed a blocker where UI pop-ups wouldn't close if the window behind them was closed first. This could happen, for example, when a cinematic dialogue triggered and closed the map while you were still naming a custom marker.
  
• Fixed the loading screen not showing an image when joining a multiplayer session.
  
• Fixed the damage type in the Crushing Fist spell tooltip.
  
• The Legendary Resistance: Incapacitation tooltip now mentions that it can only be used 3 times.
  
• Made sure the grid shown in inventories is correctly drawn if the grid becomes smaller.
  
• Removed a low resolution version of one of the loading screen images.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some Video Settings like VSync and Refresh Rate to reset back upon starting the game.
  
• Removed the option to confirm or reset options in the Alter Custom Mode menu for players who are not the host of a session.
  
• Total party gold is no longer seen in barter mode.
  
• Fixed an issue with the radial menus on controller causing the same items to get re-added to the same submenu and the Action radial menu to sometimes appear empty.
  

• Removed some world labels that were showing up for a pair of dice in Withers' chapel in the Epilogue camp that made it look like they could be picked up. Also swapped out a cutting board.
  

• Optimised the appearance of platforms with chains in Grymforge.
  
• Fixed some minor visual issues with weapons.
  
• Fixed impact VFX/SFX not working for some projectiles.
  

• Fixed a zombie that would T-pose when dragged from your inventory.
  
• Fixed some destruction animations that weren't working properly.
  

• Fixed the wrong ambience sounds playing in the Last Light region and Wyrm's Rock Fortress.
  

• Wyll is now appropriately celebratory upon the Netherbrain's defeat.
  
• Added text to the tooltip for Cazador's Misty Escape ability on Tactician Mode.
  
• Fixed Gerringothe Thorm's Sublimation ability tooltip incorrectly stating that it should kill the target instantly.
  
• Wyll now has a line during the ending scene when realising the tadpoles are gone.
  
• Added an extra dialogue option when talking to Shadowheart in the Epilogue to fix a path that only gave you one choice.
  
• Fixed the Wrathful Spirits condition saying the affected entity is Immune to all damage instead of Vulnerable to all damage.
  

<*> Game Of The Year
<*> Outstanding Story-Rich Game