Baldur’s Gate 3’s Next Patch Adds Something New For Nearly Every Party Member

Baldur’s Gate 3’s seventh big patch contains some of the most significant additions to the game since its release, and has been in development for a few months now. It’s finally coming to a PC or console near you in September, so developer Larian Studios has put together an update to whet your appetite that breaks down some incoming changes, from the big ones like the new endings and official mod support, to smaller things like bug fixes.

Dynamic split screen, Honour Mode changes, and more

If you’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 split screen (sorry, Xbox Series S players, you can skip this one), patch 7 will introduce dynamic split screen, meaning that if two players are within a certain range of each other, the screen will no longer be divided in half. This will allow you to see more of the surrounding area without your divided segments cutting each other off. Think of how much better your screenshots will be.

Larian is also making some changes to the game’s very difficult Honour Mode, including giving more enemies powerful Legendary Actions, powerful abilities or traits to add some extra challenge. Also coming in patch 7 is the previously announced official mod support, cinematics for the “evil” endings, and some bug fixes for things like party banter not triggering under certain conditions. If you’re interested in trying out the mod tools early, Larian is now taking registrations for a closed beta that you can sign up for on Baldur’s Gate 3’s steam page.

Each origin character is getting tweaked in patch 7

On top of all this, Larian has confirmed it’s addressing a few weird idiosyncrasies with most of Baldur’s Gate 3’s party members, including all the starters. This includes adding new dialogue in some scenes, adjusting animations, and even adding a few more smooches for some characters. Here’s the full rundown:

Wyll Highlights

• Patch 7 includes a heap of fixes for Wyll, ranging from improvements to his dialogue reactivity to fixes for romance scenes.
• If you’ve experienced issues triggering the romance scene with Wyll, this update will fix that. Should your relationship be headed in that direction, the cutscene in question will now trigger when you speak to Wyll at camp before your Long Rest.
• A bug that had been preventing his romance greeting from triggering has also been fixed, so players in Act III who have a stable, loving, and committed relationship with Wyll will now see his romance greeting triggering correctly.
• We’ve fixed Wyll’s dialogue reactivity during the epilogue for partnered players who have either joined Karlach in the Hells or Lae’zel in the rebellion, and we also determined there simply weren’t enough opportunities to kiss Wyll during the epilogue. This update rectifies that with the option to ask for a kiss in more paths of Wyll’s epilogue dialogue.
• And if you’re in holographic form during the epilogue, he’ll no longer automatically assume he’s talking to Lae’zel, which was weird.

Astarion Highlights

• In Patch 7, we’ve made improvements to the facial animations of your character during some kissing cinematics, including with the ascended Astarion.
• We’ve also made tweaks to how Origin characters react within certain cutscenes, to enhance their emotional impact. For example, companions will show Astarion more empathy when he loses his ability to withstand sunlight.

Lae’zel Highlights

• Lae’zel will now wait a little longer at her recruitment site if you tell her you’ll be returning. And once she’s set up at camp, she will also cycle through more varied idle animations.
• This update will also put an end to an annoying issue where resurrecting Lae’zel on the beach in Act I would cause her to appear in the Party Line but not in the world, blocking you from leaving Act I.

Karlach Highlights

• Along with some more general fixes for Karlach, she will now react to Dammon if she finds him dead after he has told her that he can help her.
• That sketchy fade-to-black that follows her final scene in Avernus, which also unintentionally gave you a very brief glimpse of the region in gameplay mode, was a visual bug that has also been fixed.
• The dialogue block caused by choosing to stay with a different companion the morning after your second romance scene with Karlach is no more.
• Also, she’ll no longer brush the shaved side of her head during her camp idle animation. Wrong side, Karlach.

Gale Highlights

• With a few tweaks to camera angles and fixes to animation pops, repeated dialogue, and missing VFX, we’ve polished up Gale and his scenes and further refined his donation UI.
• That panel that opens when donating magical items to Gale? This will now show all items eligible for donation – including those on your person, your party’s inventories, and your Traveller’s Chest.
• This is part of the work that began with Hotfix #16 to improve the donation UI and update a player’s ability to access certain quest-related items, which has now been completed. We’re reinstating the intended behaviour that was removed in Hotfix #17 as a temporary bug fix to missing UI functionality. So if you now deny Gale a magic item three times in a row with magical items either on your person, your party’s inventories, or now from your Traveller’s Chest, he will leave your party.
• Alternatively, selecting “I’m not giving you anything. Not now, not ever” will still cause Gale to leave your party forever.
• We’ve also patched up a bug that was preventing the final dialogue between Gale and Mystra from triggering, as well as a scene in the endgame that would cut off before you could kiss.

Shadowheart Highlights

• In addition to fixing a few of her animation bugs, this update fixes a number of quest issues for Shadowheart.
• A bug that saw the Spear of Night either not being received, or being spoken about as if it hadn’t already been acquired, is no more. Another bout of amnesia has also been fixed, in which Shadowheart occasionally thought Viconia was still alive after killing her. The ‘Daughter of Darkness’ quest should also now close properly if you choose to surrender Shadowheart to Viconia.
• And yes, we’ve tweaked a few kissing scenes for her too, fixing a broken romance cutscene that should have triggered after giving Shadowheart the Idol of Shar, and a kissing animation that will no longer kick in before the dialogue option is chosen. We’ve also polished up the appearance of neck kissing. In the words of Michelangelo, no great work of art is ever finished, and so too is our approach to the art of snogging.

Patch 7 is still two months away, but Larian says it’s not Baldur’s Gate 3‘s final update, as the studio is looking to add crossplay multiplayer and a photo mode, which will all come as part of a later patch. All of these new changes sound great, but I will probably wait until the photo mode is added to go back because I’m a screenshot sicko.

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