It’s been a long time coming, but the Baldur’s Gate 3 patch 7 release date has finally arrived. Larian Studios has been hard at work on what’s expected to be the final major update for its masterful Dungeons and Dragons RPG. The best game of 2023 by almost any metric you care to check, BG3 has continued to grow and improve in the year since it launched out of early access. Among the key features on show here are more evil ending cinematics, improvements to Honor Mode, and a comprehensive mod manager along with official BG3 mod tools.
It’d be tough to have made it through the past 12 months without encountering Baldur’s Gate 3. Having swept up accolades across the board, including the prestigious PCGamesN Game of the Year 2023 gong, the DnD game is a shoe-in for one of the best RPGs of all time. Having completed a full adventure in four-player co-op, a mammoth endeavor that stretched close to the hundred-hour mark, I still find myself eager to kick off a new solo campaign, and this latest BG3 update feels like the perfect time to jump into that Dark Urge playthrough.
Included in Baldur’s Gate 3 patch 7 are 13 new cinematics offering “varying conclusions to your most evil playthroughs.” These are so striking, so sinister in parts, that Larian has included them in its reworked content toggle that allows you to show or hide “sexual and violent cinematics.” While this doesn’t change your adventure in any way, it cuts out any nudity or especially violent and gory moments.
If you’re starting anew and want to test your skills, you’ll be pleased to know that the ultra-challenging Honor Mode has a range of additional tricks up its sleeve, including new Legendary Actions such as Malus Thorm’s troublesome Grasping Appendage, capable of forcibly yanking your heroes into serious danger. There are lots more spells and additions to discover, too – drop Dror Ragzlin into the spider pit, for example, and he’ll attempt to use Arachnid Compulsion to turn the eight-legged hordes to his side.
There’s also a colossal list of other Larian-made adjustments in patch 7. UI elements have been revised, reorganized, and improved; new animations have been introduced; additional dialogue options have been scattered about for moments that felt unaddressed; and there’s a whole host of bug fixes and performance improvements. Beyond that, however, the developer has opened the door to make creating and sharing your best Baldur’s Gate 3 mods a lot, lot simpler.
The new in-game BG3 mod manager allows players to browse a wealth of community creations without ever stepping outside of the game. You can install any that sound exciting and then quickly enable or disable them as you wish. This also makes it easy to ensure your friends are all using the same mods when starting a multiplayer party together.
The Baldur’s Gate 3 modding toolkit goes live later today, Thursday September 5, and is a standalone application available for free on Steam that is designed to make creating BG3 mods a lot more straightforward. Any mods created using this toolkit can quickly be pushed to the in-game manager to share with other players. “Whether you want to mod Baldur’s Gate 3 with supported or third-party mods and mod managers, you’ll always have that choice,” Larian emphasizes.
“We’ve still got a few more patches up our sleeve for Baldur’s Gate 3,” the developer adds, “which will include both crossplay and a photo mode, alongside other fixes. But eventually all stories must come to an end. As Swen [Vincke, Larian founder] said during last week’s PAX West panel, it’s time for the team to go back to our cave and hang the armor on the wall while we focus on bringing you our next product.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 patch 7 releases Thursday September 5. Larian notes that it’s approximately 11.6 GB on PC, and that you’ll need 160GB of free space to install the update. If you’re unable to do so, you may find that uninstalling the game and then redownloading it solves your issue.
Alternatively, there are many more of the best fantasy games to explore. Or you can go right to the top and check out the best PC games to play in 2024.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.