If you’re wondering why the closed beta for Baldur’s Gate 3’s seventh patch is delayed, picture this: You’ve sat down to play D&D with your mates. You’re all excited to toy with some new homebrew content your DM has organised. You go to make a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot anything amiss in the room when, unprompted, your DM reaches across the table, grabs your dice, and throws them out of the window.
That’s basically what’s going on with Baldur’s Gate 3 under the hood right now, as revealed by Larian Studios on Twitter. “The Patch 7 Closed Beta has been delayed. Why? While fixing bugs, passive dice rolls literally stopped working,” the post reads. “We’re trying to figure out how we got here, so while we do that, we’ll be pushing the planned Closed Beta back to later this week.”
This, as you might imagine, is a problem—especially since Baldur’s Gate 3 actually diverges from the tabletop system when it comes to the Perception skill. In D&D 5th edition (the ruleset BG3 is based on), characters have a “passive Perception”, usually 10 plus their skill modifier, which the DM can use to see if they noticed getting snuck up on without giving the game away. Being a videogame, Baldur’s Gate 3 can just roll dice under the hood—under normal circumstances. Patch 7 does not appear to be a normal circumstance.
As penance, Larian has instead posted a preview of the patch notes to Steam, which include reassurances that the evil endings are on their way alongside the marquee feature of the patch: An honest-to-Mystra set of mod tools.
Split-screen gameplay is also getting a revamp, as the news post reads: “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.”
Larian’s also shared some other tweaks to Honour Mode—for example, Dror Razglin can mind control his spiders if you throw him in the thunderdome with them, which is terrifying, and the Bulette has new legendary actions, which I don’t recall ever asking for. To take things from scary to scarier, several Gith foes have also been given legendary actions to end your runs with. I’m glad I’ve already earned my golden dice.
There’s also gameplay fixes, UI improvements, a smattering of writing tweaks (including one that makes your mates “more sympathetic to Astarion fleeing from the sun” at the end of the game) alongside some performance tune-ups. Mind, these are just highlights for the patch—there’s plenty more to come—but you can read the notes-in-progress below.
Patch 7 Highlights
Remember that Patch 7 will only be live in the Closed Beta on Steam for the time being, and we still expect to release it live to all players in September.
Spoilers: As always, some of these entries might contain spoilers, so proceed with caution!
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.
- Polished the appearance of neck kisses in lovey-dovey scenes with Shadowheart on the Sharran path for characters with large body types and dragonborn characters.
Writing and Flow
- Dotted some dialogue options and voiced lines into dialogues across the game to add some more overall reactivity, particularly to account for edge-case flows.
- Dotted more Dark Urge reactivity (dialogue options and Narrator lines) into dialogues across the game.
- Resolved an issue that had been rendering some romance party banters inaccessible while adventuring.
- Avatar Lae’zel can now decide what she wants to do at the end of the game after the brain is defeated even if she wasn’t the avatar making the choices in the main dialogue.
- Added a dialogue option asking for a kiss in more paths of Wyll’s epilogue dialogue.
- If you’re in holographic form in the epilogue, Wyll won’t automatically assume he’s talking to Lae’zel.
- Gave Wyll a new greeting for romance partners in Act III and characters with really low approval.
- Companions should now be more sympathetic to Astarion fleeing from the sun.
- Added a new dialogue in which Karlach will react to Dammon if she finds him dead after he told her that he can help her.
- Minthara will now react if you knock her out in Act I.
Scripting
- Fixed several issues (related to resurrecting characters via Withers, restructuring the party at night, and automatic camp night scenes) that would trap you in an eternal slumber, unable to end a Long Rest.
- Fixed a bug causing Shadowheart to keep repeating one line when you talk to her after she’s resurrected by Withers from the Shadowfell.
- Fixed a small flow issue preventing you from commenting on Gale’s last name.
- Fixed several occurrences of Wyll still having an exclamation mark above his head when he already told you everything he had to say.
- When playing as the Dark Urge, Minthara will no longer act as though you accepted Bhaal when
- Fixed a broken kissing scene after you gave Shadowheart the Idol of Shar.
- Fixed an issue where Jaheira would stop following the party after spending a night outside of the party.
- Fixed the rune tablets on the nautiloid sometimes not triggering the Narrator’s lines.
- Clerics of Lathander should now recognise his symbol on a Lathanderian amulet.
- Ensured the avatar is prioritised as the main speaker in dialogues related to the hag’s Act I surrender.
- Minthara does, in fact, now have something to say about after you kill her.
- Made the romance scene at night with Wyll in Act III unskippable if it triggers to avoid accidentally skipping it and not being able to finish the romance arc.
- If Avatar Karlach and Wyll are partners and go to together, he’ll now act accordingly during the epilogue.
- Fixed Karlach’s scene not playing if you decided to go with her when playing as Wyll.
- A bug has been fixed so that Wyll will now talk to his father if after the pact with Mizora is broken but Ravengard is saved from despite this, to decide on his title.
- Lae’zel will now wait a little longer for you at the site of her recruitment if you tell her you’ll be back.
- Improved Lae’zel’s idle camp behaviours to align a bit better with the other companions’.
- Fixed the fade-to-black after Karlach’s scene at the end of the game, which would give you a very brief glimpse of Game Developer Land.
- Breaking up with Karlach by speaking with another companion you’re dating the morning after her romance scene won’t block her dialogue anymore.
- Reinstated Gale’s last line in his detailed explanation of ceremorphosis and tweaked a dialogue option to react to it.
- Now that you can give Gale magic items from the Traveller’s Chest, he will leave again if you refuse to do so.
- Patched up some savegames that had a bug that would prevent the dialogue between Gale and at the end of the game from triggering.
- Fixed a bug that let you kiss Gale even if he was in a disguised form before confronting . Also fixed this dialogue with him cutting off before you could give him a smooch.
- Reworked the script that determines whether a character is too busy to talk. This will prevent bugs like Minthara’s dialogue not triggering at Moonrise Towers after you rescue her, and knock-on effects as a result of this, like not being able to rest or fast travel.
Performance
- Continued to make performance and stability optimisations across the game and implemented many under-the-hood code fixes.
- Optimised performance. This will have a more noticeable impact in areas with large numbers of NPCs (like the Lower City) and will reduce peak memory usage when loading levels for the first time. It will also be noticeable when managing lots of loot (e.g. when transferring everything from a camp chest to a character’s inventory).
Cinematics
- Reworked and revamped the cutscene that plays when you interact with Ansur’s bones in the Wyrmway.
- Polished facial expressions and emotions across companion dialogues, including to the facial animations of your character during some kissing cinematics, including with the Vampire Lord Astarion.
Note: Please bear in mind these are just some highlights from Patch 7 and we will share the full patch notes once Patch 7 is live for everyone.
