Baldurs Gate 3’s most feature-filled patch yet is out today, Thursday, November 30th. It not only fixes slowdowns caused by the eternal acts of theft and violence reported earlier this week, but brings with it brand new epilogues, bringing closure to each player’s unique journeys, new game modes and so much more.
This playable new epilogue gameplay, accessible to all players loading the game prior to the final fight, takes place before the credits. Players will now find themselves in camp, 6 months after the events of Baldurs Gate 3’s story, where they’ll meet new friends and old, taking all the time they need to say their final goodbyes to the party.
For the writers of Larian, this ‘final goodbye’ has been some of the most complex writing in the game so far, as it takes advantage of Baldur’s Gate 3’s reactivity across the entire adventure. A gigantic tree of permutations defines the content, with new writing (3,589 lines, to be exact), cinematics, and even characters joining the get-together at camp, organised by Withers.
Alongside the new epilogue content come two new game modes, Honour Mode and Custom Mode. Honour Mode not only makes the game more difficult in and out of combat, but also introduces 30+ new tweaks to all of Baldurs Gate 3’s boss-fights, with a new Legendary Action system designed to catch players off-guard and increase the challenge. Now, bosses can perform new actions, adding twists and turns to all major fights throughout the game.
Inspiration points become more valuable in Honour Mode, as loading previous games – or ‘save scumming’ – is disabled, so players will need to keep count! Some of the more powerful ‘unintended exploits’ have been removed for players who embark on an Honour Mode adventure, though have been kept open for players to exploit in other difficulty settings.
When a player dies, they will be presented with statistics of their journey, including how long they survived and how far they made it. Should players choose, they can continue their adventure, which will then disable Honour Mode. Players who do manage to complete the entire game with Honour Mode enabled (without dying) will be awarded the coveted Golden D20.
Those who lack a penchant for punishment (or perhaps want to push it to its extremities) may avail of Custom Mode, a new game mode that allows players to pick and choose the type of experience best for them. With many options to pick from, a few favourites include the option to hide the required roll to succeed dice checks, which gives a more realistic D&D experience, as well as the ability to hide enemy HP in battle, again more closely simulating the tabletop style.
Other options in Custom Mode include Short Rests fully healing the party, as well as disabling Death Saving Throws, or even the ability to hide failed Perception Checks, which means you’ll never know there was even a roll to begin with!
This patch also lands with improved inventory access, allowing players to manage the inventory of all companions from one single UI, regardless of whether they’re currently in the active party. On top of all this, Patch 5 also brings performance improvements engineered as a consequence of the Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3, which benefits all platforms.
Patch 5 is so feature-full, we recommend reading the full patch notes on Steam. It includes many tweaks, fixes, and additions.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on PC, Mac and PS5, and launches in December on Xbox Series X|S.
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