Long-awaited patch leaves beta with revamped splitscreen and bug fixes

Did you forget aboutBaldur’s Gate 3? BecauseBaldur’s Gate 3did not forget about you. Specifically, it did not forget about the incorrigible evil-doers amongst you who’ve been gunning for some additional plot catharsis. Larian’s very bestestRPGhas been biding its time in the shadows while you’ve been busy with other games. It has lingered silently while you’ve been off heisting on Tatooine or getting all messed up by Golden-Eyed Beasts, waiting and watching for the perfect moment - and now, it has finally struck with an unholy new patch, which adds 13 new Evil Endings, revamped splitscreen and an official modding toolkit. Foolish summer child! It is too late to flee.

I highlight the Show Sexual And Violent Cinematics setting because you’ll need to disable it if you want to view the aforesaid new evil endings in their entirety. They are, after all,veryevil. “This setting does not affect your adventure, your choices, or your access to romance options,” the changelog reassures. “However, it does block sexual content with nudity and particularly violent scenes with gore.”

If you’re playing as a Dark Urge character, the update also makes it possible to add a particular Tiefing bard to your party as a controllable character at camp, given an empty slot. This is very much a “one-night kinda thing”, however. “There are no new companions,” the developers note. “There is only death.” If you were hoping for a surprise deluge of permanent full-time party members, you’ll have to console yourself with new Honour Mode features instead. These include new Legendary Actions - Dror Ragzlin will now be able to befriend pit spiders, while local physician Malus Thorm has a new trick called Grasping Appendage.

And then there’s the official in-game mod manager and accompanying toolkit, available via Steam, which are far toovoluminousto summarise. “With this new and supported way to create and install mods, you should see improvements in compatibility and accessibility, and can rest more assured that your supported mods work wherever you’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3, which will include consoles a little down the line,” the devs note.

Patch 7 weighs approximately 11.6GB on PC, and will require 160GB of free space to install - the devs suggest uninstalling and reinstalling the patched version as a single download if you don’t have room.

Larian are still working on crossplay and photo mode, but this will be one of the last significant Baldur’s Gate 3 patches, as the developers bid the Sword Coast goodbye and commence work on no less thantwo new games. As the patch notes conclude, “it’s time for the team to go back to our cave and hang the armour on the wall while we focus on bringing you our next project.”

Disclosure: Former RPS deputy editor Adam Smith (RPS in peace) now works at Larian and is the lead writer for Baldur’s Gate 3. Former contributor Emily Gera also works on it.