Summary
- Baldur’s Gate 3 has received regular updates and hotfixes since its launch, fixing bugs and improving many aspects of the game.
- Many minor changes to the game have been made, but the best post-launch updates have added significant content or introduced much-requested features.
- BG3 spent three years in early access, but still had room for improvement, and even after its official launch, the game continues to receive updates from Larian Studios.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has been fully released for a few months now, but the developers continue improving the game with regular updates in the form of patches and hotfixes. Plenty of those adjustments made through updates are subtle or not noticed without reading the patch notes that accompany them. Some changes, however, have had a larger impact than most others, even if the changes themselves weren’t necessarily large.
The developers at Larian Studios are dedicated to making Baldur’s Gate 3 the best experience they possibly can. That came in the form of several smaller hotfixes that addressed minor issues that could be game breaking. And in addition, there have been five large patches that have made a variety of changes from performance improvements, particularly in Act 3, which had a tendency to stutter and lag, to adding full sections to the game, such as a party that acts as an epilogue and provides closure for the adventure.
Everything Added In Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 Update – New Modes, Boss Changes, & Differences
Patch 5 adds some of the biggest changes to Baldur’s Gate 3 yet, expanding an already robust experience with new modes, a new epilogue, and more.
10 Orin’s Outfit
Obtainable From Orin
While the ability to get Orin’s outfit now is great, it isn’t the primary reason that this is included in the list. The real benefit that makes this one of the best changes and updates is the precedent it sets for including NPC outfits as gear that can be picked up and used by the party. Aside from the stats and having the full look of Orin with her blades available as items as well, the potential to pick up even more style points from the outfits of other NPCs would be a nice treat.
9 Romance Tweaks
Romancing Companions Is More Gradual
At the time of release, the approval bars and romance triggers had a few issues, such as romances triggering too early to the point that it seemed like everybody was waiting to get with Tav. As a result, romances received multiple updates in Baldur’s Gate 3. Gale required multiple fixes when it came to romances, considering he was rather overzealous in pursuing Tav just because they gave him magic items to eat in order to stabilize the orb in his chest. And so, Larian Studios kept updating romances to try putting each one in a spot where the companions aren’t too eager, yet aren’t too difficult to pursue either.
8 Recruiting Minthara
Evil Is No Longer Required
Originally, parties had to commit to helping the Goblins and invading the Emerald Grove in order to recruit Minthara in Baldur’s Gate 3. This then led to a loophole to recruit Minthara with a good-aligned party that included turning her into a sheep and dragging her across the Shadow-cursed Lands. However, Patch 5 changed the recruit options for Minthara officially so that such workarounds aren’t needed anymore. Now, all the party needs to do is use non-lethal damage to knock Minthara out and continue to Act 2 to recruit her at Moonrise Towers.
7 Performance Improvements
Addressing Stuttering And Lag
There’s a lot going on in-game with NPCs and background activities, especially in Act 3, where Baldur’s Gate is built to feel like a living, breathing city. One issue ended up being caused by crimes always being active in the background, which resulted in a lot of lag and slowed down the game. Thankfully, the updates implemented by Larian Studios have helped improve BG3‘s performance significantly.
6 Magic Mirror
Change Appearance Anytime
At first, once Tav was created and entered the game, their appearance couldn’t be changed aside from in-game choices, such as using the Astral-touched Tadpole and becoming partially illithid. That meant the only way to change any other elements of how Tav looked would require restarting the game with a new version of Tav. However, the Magic Mirror was added in an update that allows Tav’s appearance to be changed anytime.
Baldur’s Gate 3: All The Ways To Alter Tav’s Appearance (Without The Magic Mirror)
While Baldur’s Gate 3 offers players many options when creating a custom character, there a still a few ways to alter their appearance once in-game.
5 Karlach And Wyll Epilogue
An Almost Happy Ending
Prior to Patch 5, this update would’ve ranked higher. Karlach and Wyll’s shared epilogue is the happiest ending that Karlach could have given her circumstances with the Infernal Engine. However, Patch 5 offers an update on Karlach and Wyll, primarily by showing Withers’ ability to pull them from Avernus, so they can participate in his party. Not only are they shown to be alive and well, but it seems that Karlach is still in good spirits since she has a true ally with her in the hells.
4 Withers’ Wardrobe
Store Offline Players Inside
One issue with multiplayer at launch was that the characters of offline players would be stuck in the party, meaning that they couldn’t be replaced with a companion in order for the host to continue playing with a full group of four using NPCs. An update implemented Withers’ Wardrobe, which is a whimsical way to remove the characters of offline players in order to continue progressing through the game without being hindered by a smaller party because a slot is being used. Then, the wardrobe can be used to bring those characters back into the game at a later time, if needed.
3 Trade Mode
Instead Of Bartering
Baldur’s Gate 3 has two ways of exchanging goods with vendors: bartering and trade mode. The update here wasn’t the addition of trade mode because that was already included in the game at its release. However, trade mode, which is arguably easier to use, isn’t free of bugs. In some cases, it wouldn’t work at all. And a minor inconvenience was the game defaulting to bartering, which was fixed in an update as well. It still has bugs at times that make it not work, but trade mode has improved through updates.
2 Withers’ Party
Adding Closure
Perhaps the biggest change came in Patch 5. There’s now an epilogue set six months after the events of the game that takes the form of a party hosted by Withers. This provides a lot more closure than the game had before because it allows for a glimpse into the lives of the party members now that the Absolute has been defeated and ceremorphosis is no longer a looming threat. Additionally, Withers’ speech gives an amount of optimism that this group will always be bonded by fate, and perhaps another journey will find them in the future.
1 Scratch Update
Scratch Fetches Almost Anything
Naturally, the number one spot is taken by an update made to the best boy in all the realms: Scratch. Before, Scratch would only fetch his ball when it was thrown, meaning that the party couldn’t give him any of the many bones they came across during their journey. However, that was changed through updates to the game. Now, the party can play fetch with Scratch using almost any item, and Scratch himself asks for one last game of fetch with the Astral Prism during the epilogue party.
Baldur’s Gate 3 spent about three years in early access before it was fully released. However, being released doesn’t mean that it’s perfect, and the team at Larian has been working to continuously improve their game. Considering the development team has said they aren’t done yet, there will still be updates and changes to look forward to in Baldur’s Gate 3.