Patch 8 for Baldur's Gate 3 is finally available. Swen Vincke didn't lie, the latest update to Larian's hit RPG is huge
The last major patch for Baldur's Gate 3 is now available. As a farewell, the studio even took care of a fantastic animated trailer featuring Swen Vincke himself.
It's over. As announced, Larian Studios released the last major update for Baldur’s Gate 3 - Patch 8, which officially ends the game's development. As a farewell, the team even prepared an animated trailer created in collaboration with Spud Gun Studios. The clip wasn't short of familiar faces, and even Swen Vincke himself made a guest appearance in his first animated role.
Patch 8 - what's new?
Patch 8 was announced in December 2024. Since then, we have been keeping you up to date with all the new features that the studio announced as part of this huge patch. Nonetheless, it's worth briefly reminding what the patch adds to the game.
- Full cross-play between PC, MacOS, PS5, and Xbox - with progression maintained across platforms. All players using mods in cross-play mode must have the same set of modifications to a shared game.
- Photo mode - allows you to position characters in various poses, manipulate the camera, and also use filters and stickers (over 300).
- 12 new subclasses - one for each character class. There, we will find, among others, the Path of the Giant Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Hexblade, and Way of the Drunken Master—all subclasses the past few months.
- Steam Cards - you can now collect cards, create badges, and emoticons on Steam.
- Upgraded modding toolkit - now offers fresh UI features for creators (Larian emphasizes that it would be great for every modder to take a look at the latest guidelines).
Swen Vincke didn't lie
Swen Vincke wasn't exaggerating when he said that if there were a Michelin guide for updates, Patch 8 would get 3 stars. The list of all changes and key fixes in the latest patch is horrendously long. Below you will find its brief summary.
- Fixes of many mechanics, elimination of bugs related to items, improvements in pathfinding, and combat interactions.
- Adjustments in balance and fixes of errors causing fights for no reason, adjustments of skirmish mechanics in Honour Mode.
- Greater stability of mods.
- Better optimization.
- Refinement of some dialogues.
- Interface improvements and new animations for creatures (e.g., kobolds, harpies).
- New sound elements have been added (e.g., the Easter egg song), and animations of some objects in cutscenes have been improved.
Larian is over with Baldur’s Gate 3 and moves on
Larian Studios has once again announced that Patch 8 is the final update introducing fresh content. So there is no point in counting on additional plot threads, mechanics, or functions. The devs considered the story to be closed - and itted that it's time to move on. As they wrote in the official statement, referring to the words of Swen Vincke from last year:
[…] 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.
Patches will still be created to fix bugs, but as for major changes - it's over. The team is already working on the next project, about which we don't know too much yet.
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