Baldur's Gate III News

Antimatter

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A crazily huge interview with Swen Vincke and Adam Smith about pre-BG3 Larian, BG3, and their current iterations of the next game(s).

 

Antimatter

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Sounds like they've been true to their word and will be rolling out the mod support for BG3 (and even alpha-testing it with the prominent modders):

 

Black Elk

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That's encouraging news! Honestly, as far as Larian community updates go, that might be the best one we've ever gotten hehe. I mean it actually went into some nuts and bolts there, complete with a timeframe and everything! Some serious deets. Also kinda good to know that the next patch isn't immediately imminent, because the number of times I've busted my install trying to get a mod up only to have a new patch drop like the very next day, well anyway, just good to have timeline there, cause it makes it feel a bit safer to mess around with mods during the interim. I have like a dozen campaigns in honour mode going right now, and those saves are precious, so I've just been running the vanilla for months and months now lol. I'm so used to the vague stuff like "coming soon" or "right around the corner" that when someone says something like "September" that seems refreshingly concrete for a BG3 "what comes next?" riff hehe.

It's good that they at least have a team on it. I got the impression from some of those recent interview articles that like everyone who worked on the game was somehow totally burnt out on it, but then you gotta figure that a portion of that cohort of people they hired during the pandemic, at least some of those peeps might still be pretty stoked off it. Good to hear. I still hope for a Durlag's somehow! Since I haven't heard anything at all about a new Neverwinter Nights, I will settle for Baldur's Gate Nights, whatever that might entail. My secret hope is that some modder out there will try to go for the holy grail of the Day and Night cycle, just cause they said it couldn't be done. An overhaul for UI stuff with Cam/Party Movement controls, some new custom character cosmetics, new monster models, who knows? I mean we gotta see what the toolkit looks like first, but still, better news than no news! haha

ps. on the subject of secret hopes for mods, just cause they mentioned Lae'zel with a mullet lol... now I've got a whole image in my mind of Lae'zel & the battle for the Temples of Syrinx (lvl 21-12+) the githranchy mod, but like where it's like all set at night, and also raining, and in the snow somehow lol. That could be cool! There are at least 2 dragons in the game already. The red dragon, which is perfectly executed, and then we also got one that looks sorta Caldwell Cult of the Dragon cover style, so a pretty good start there for the skin and bones hehe

cult of the dragon.png

Like even though they're trying to revamp the visuals for certain dragons with the new ones, I think probably they could get some mileage out of those existing dragons, like with a change on the scale colors and some tweaks to the horns and such, without having to go full on. Like probably a Green and Black Dragon, totally doable. I don't know we'll have to see how tall it can tower on that one, but things are looking up! lol
 
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Antimatter

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Would be a shame not to mention more details about the next update.


It will have more than I thought it would. On top of the modding toolkit, here are my personal highlights:

Honour Mode Improvements

We’re continuing to make improvements to combat in Honour Mode too. With Patch 7, even more creatures have been bestowed additional Legendary Actions, including the bulette, everyone’s favourite neighbourhood surgeon, Malus Thorm, and githyanki Ch'r'ai Tska'an, Ch'r'ai Har'rak, and Ptaris.

Dror Ragzlin will now also be able to use a new spell called Arachnid Compulsion to rally the spiders that reside in the nearby pit to fight the real enemy - you.

Evil Endings

And, of course, Patch 7 will also be bringing several new cinematics that offer your more evil playthroughs a grander finale!

From avatar Origin characters, including the Dark Urge, to the multiple different pathways that you can take as your own player character, each new cinematic is yours to discover through nefarious means.
 

Cahir

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Would be a shame not to mention more details about the next update.


It will have more than I thought it would. On top of the modding toolkit, here are my personal highlights:

Honour Mode Improvements

We’re continuing to make improvements to combat in Honour Mode too. With Patch 7, even more creatures have been bestowed additional Legendary Actions, including the bulette, everyone’s favourite neighbourhood surgeon, Malus Thorm, and githyanki Ch'r'ai Tska'an, Ch'r'ai Har'rak, and Ptaris.

Dror Ragzlin will now also be able to use a new spell called Arachnid Compulsion to rally the spiders that reside in the nearby pit to fight the real enemy - you.

Evil Endings

And, of course, Patch 7 will also be bringing several new cinematics that offer your more evil playthroughs a grander finale!

From avatar Origin characters, including the Dark Urge, to the multiple different pathways that you can take as your own player character, each new cinematic is yours to discover through nefarious means.
Not to mention, this won't be the last patch they have in their pipeline!
 

Antimatter

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Well, finally Larian admitted they DID work on BG4 and even had a part of it in a playable state. No more smoke and mirrors. What they still don't admit is--most likely--they canceled it not because it wasn't fun or exciting, but because the contract negotiations broke.


"It turns out that this [being done with D&D] was only after Larian had started working on a new Forgotten Realms adventure, one it ultimately decided not to complete. Larian CEO Swen Vincke says that "you could already play stuff".

"So Larian started working on a follow-up. Initially, an expansion. "We've got the engine, got everything in here, all we need to do is add extra levels or just make some new stories—how hard can it be?", he says.

Progress was quick because "the production machine was still warm". But coming right off Baldur's Gate 3, Vincke knew it wouldn't all be smooth sailing. "I mean, we'd probably have to redo it 10 times. And do we really want to do this for the next three years?" For an expansion, it didn't seem worth it. But for a full sequel, Baldur's Gate 4? "Oh yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. Let's make BG4. All the stuff that we did for this thing, we can just move it in there, people are gonna love it."

But then that would be even more years, "doing the same thing", and that didn't have much appeal for Vincke or the developers."

I'm still pretty sad we won't even see an expansion to BG3 that would have covered the cut content and new adventures with our favorite NPCs.

Also, Happy Birthday, BG3! One year!
 

m7600

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@Antimatter That is so unfortunate and wasteful. Is there no chance both sides can’t come together? Surely it must have been profitable for Hasbro/Wizards? You'd think they’d be motivated to extend an olive branch.
Sure, that's what any rational person would say. But WotC has been killing the goose that lays the golden eggs over and over again for the past few years.
 

Zaxares

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Well, finally Larian admitted they DID work on BG4 and even had a part of it in a playable state. No more smoke and mirrors. What they still don't admit is--most likely--they canceled it not because it wasn't fun or exciting, but because the contract negotiations broke.

That is SUCH disappointing news. :( On the other hand though, it does sound from what Sven said that BG/D&D burnout was starting to hit Larian pretty hard, so maybe it might have been for the best. Maybe it's better if they back off and take a break from D&D for a while and revisit this again in 3-4 years, when the player base has seriously wrung all the enjoyment they can out of BG3 first. In all honesty, I would be VERY surprised if this was really the end of any collaboration between Larian and WotC/Hasbro; for the former, they know they have a LOT of goodwill and fond memories from an eager playerbase they can leverage (and BG3 is, to date, their crowning triumph as a studio), and for the latter... Well, after seeing how much money BG3 made, I think Hasbro's own shareholders would be screaming at them to go back and make another BG4. :p
 

Black Elk

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Larian announcing that they were going to walk away from BG3 just as the game was peaking will probably baffle me forever.

They just launched the Channel From Hell (a dedicated youtube channel) to celebrate 1 year of BG3, and all I can think of is how awkward the timing feels for some of this stuff. Like it's only been a year? OK so granted the name is clever, but also my sense of time on this one is super distorted. It's as if everyone else had gathered to celebrate baby's first birthday, but I'm over here like 'wait, isn't that kid almost 5 by now?' lol. It legit feels like the kid is 5, and should probably be enrolled in kindergarten already!!!

So in that respect it feels like time is moving differently for Larian. I don't know, maybe we started crossing some kind of event horizon somewhere along the way, and now Time is simultaneously slowing down while also speeding up. Some sort of WoTC golden orb just finished picking off the crew, one by one, as the whole ship goes from exponential burnout to warp? Who do we turn to now?

Probably Jason Isaacs I guess! hehe

event-horizon-jason-isaacs.png


"Liberate me!"

That DJ, he played one! Also it's mildly hilarious that Larian would launch a youtube channel with no videos ready to go lol. Like and subscribe I guess?

I just wanted a clutch Sequel or an Expansion. I guess it will have to come from mods
 

Antimatter

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I find their rhetoric about getting burned out on BG3 stories and NPCs, and--at the same time--supporting fanart & other fandom stuff controversial and dishonest. Like, imagine any author saying "yeah, yeah, this character of mine is so cool, please love them... on a side note, I'm fed up with them, so poof". This doesn't make any sense and is a failed attempt to set the narrative.

If they had BG4 in a playable state, I read that as if the game had, say, Act 1 for the possible Early Access later (similar to BG3). It also meant they had the full game story written, as nobody starts the game production without writing the full story first. So they had everything ready, and I don't believe in burning out. They might be trying to convince themselves at this point. E.g. "Yeah, this movie sucked, it's good we didn't go watch it in the cinema" while discussing a super-successful and fun movie that a person failed to watch due to life circumstances.

I would say them not blaming WotC is an indicator that they might be open to another go in a distant future if all the WotC leadership/their approach is changed.

Or, just as the new revelation makes their rhetoric from 5 months ago look stupid, maybe we'll hear a true story after a few years (that will make even more previous statements look stupid).

Another point: you don't hear any similar rhetoric about their Divinity stuff (and they had quite a few games there, not one). They will never say "we got burned out on Rivellon"--because no author would say that, at least, not after dozens of games/books in the same universe. The only difference is that the Divinity stuff is their IP, while this is a licensed D&D property.

It's indeed baffling. Just one year, and it feels empty. Imagine any other creator saying "I got burned out on X story" just after 1 super-successful book.

And it's me speaking as a huge Larian fan. I love them, just don't love dishonesty.
 

OrlonKronsteen

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It's indeed baffling.
Maybe this is a tactic to get Wizards to come back to the negotiating table? A partially developed BG4 is a juicy financial carrot. It means there's potential to generate revenue much sooner than would be the case if they get another developer to do it, as a new developer would be starting for scratch. Claiming they're burned out and already moving on with a new project could create a further sense of urgency. It adds the element of time.
 

WarChiefZeke

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I was saying that WoTC are their own worst enemy since 4th edition and since then I have been vindicated over and over.

Not just in how they market their product, or how they deal with other companies, but they also don't understand what was appealing about DnD to begin with.
 

Zaxares

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I find their rhetoric about getting burned out on BG3 stories and NPCs, and--at the same time--supporting fanart & other fandom stuff controversial and dishonest. Like, imagine any author saying "yeah, yeah, this character of mine is so cool, please love them... on a side note, I'm fed up with them, so poof". This doesn't make any sense and is a failed attempt to set the narrative.

If they had BG4 in a playable state, I read that as if the game had, say, Act 1 for the possible Early Access later (similar to BG3). It also meant they had the full game story written, as nobody starts the game production without writing the full story first. So they had everything ready, and I don't believe in burning out. They might be trying to convince themselves at this point. E.g. "Yeah, this movie sucked, it's good we didn't go watch it in the cinema" while discussing a super-successful and fun movie that a person failed to watch due to life circumstances.

I would say them not blaming WotC is an indicator that they might be open to another go in a distant future if all the WotC leadership/their approach is changed.

Or, just as the new revelation makes their rhetoric from 5 months ago look stupid, maybe we'll hear a true story after a few years (that will make even more previous statements look stupid).

Another point: you don't hear any similar rhetoric about their Divinity stuff (and they had quite a few games there, not one). They will never say "we got burned out on Rivellon"--because no author would say that, at least, not after dozens of games/books in the same universe. The only difference is that the Divinity stuff is their IP, while this is a licensed D&D property.

It's indeed baffling. Just one year, and it feels empty. Imagine any other creator saying "I got burned out on X story" just after 1 super-successful book.

And it's me speaking as a huge Larian fan. I love them, just don't love dishonesty.
Yeah, I also feel like Larian's not being completely truthful with us. I still think the root cause is that WotC/Hasbro probably either got greedy and wanted to shove in stuff like microtransactions or season passes that Larian didn't want to do, OR they wanted more creative control over the project (something which I don't necessarily disagree with. Some of the things Larian has said or done in BG3 actually grossly contradict existing D&D lore) and that was something Larian was unwilling to relinquish. But regardless, I do hope that the two of them can one day patch up their differences and we can see more BG3 DLC or BG4 (or even a more ambitious project, like NWN3 :D) in the future. One year DOES feel like we're moving on from a stellar story and lovable characters far too soon, and after the critical and commercial success that BG3 was, it honestly does boggle the mind that all parties would be willing to just drop everything and walk away.
 

Antimatter

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Lots of spoilery stuff there, so don't read if you haven't completed the game, but here are a few snippets:
  • 141,600 players conquered Honor mode
  • 1,223,305 Honor mode playthroughs ended in defeat
  • 76% of Honor mode players honorably deleted their save
  • 24% Honor mode players continued their adventure in Custom mode
  • Top 3 origin characters as avatars:
    • Astarion – 1.21 million
    • Gale – 1.20 million
    • Shadowheart– 0.86 million
  • 93% of players chose to play as a custom avatar, with 15% of those players picking Dark Urge
  • Top class picks from most popular to least:
    • Paladin
    • Sorcerer
    • Fighter
    • Barbarian
    • Rogue
    • Warlock
    • Bard
    • Wizard
    • Monk
    • Druid
    • Ranger
    • Cleric
  • Top race picks from most popular to least:
    • Elf
    • Half-Elf
    • Human
    • Tiefling
    • Drow
    • Dragonborn
    • Half-Orc
    • Githyanki
    • Dwarf
    • Gnome
    • Halfling
  • Over 75 million companion kisses
    • 27 million kisses with Shadowheart
    • 15 million kisses with Astarion
    • Minthara comes last with 169,937 kisses
  • In Act 1 celebration night, 32.5% of players romanced Shadowheart, 13.5% of players romanced Karlach, 15.6% of players slept alone
  • For Act 3, 48.8% of players experienced Shadowheart’s final romance scene, 17.6% of players had a romantic dinner with Karlach, 12.9% of players held hands with Lae’zel
 

Antimatter

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Patch 7 is now out!

And with it come new evil ending cinematics, along with Honour Mode improvements and new Legendary Actions, split screen improvements, a new way to mod your game, and a whole bunch of gameplay improvements and bug fixes.

In-Game Mod Manager

Browse Baldur’s Gate 3 mods straight from the game!

Mods that are created and uploaded via our Toolkit can be browsed and installed directly from the game itself.

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The Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit is a separate application on the Steam store that you can download for free that allows you to create mods specifically for Baldur’s Gate 3.

137abf42e9961c4633271372f72b37cf89540387.png

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.
Full notes (including spoilers):

 

Black Elk

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I'm pretty excited to see a Mod manager integrated into the main menu, which I think increases my likelihood of checking out mods. Hunting stuff down on Nexus and then using external mod loaders with script extenders to get it all working is a chore. This seems much simpler, but now I have decision paralysis. It's like the highlander of Dye mods right now probably lol. I think I will have to wait until more people vote on which mods are best, so I can rely on the top rated whatevers to guide my choices for things to choose. I think as it becomes more curated, or we get more of the mega mods. For QoL though I did not find the mod I was looking for, which was the Native Camera Tweaks and the WASD mod. It's been several months since I last tried it, but I recall really enjoying being able to control the camera pitch. I guess I'll have to wait and see what sort of stuff becomes available in the weeks ahead.

Right now I'm looking at the stuff under the UI filter. Everything has the same sort of title "Better X" but it's hard to know which Better is Best lol

I tried to filter out the cosmetics one-off stuff to focus on QoL and UI, but it's a bit unwieldy still for me. I probably need one of the guide to the mods Mods, or for someone to just put them all together into one big get hehe.

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My search for a "Scratch" mod returned zero results! Alas
 
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