The word “kiss” occurs 10 times in the latest blog post for the seventh major Baldur’s Gate 3 patch, while the word “bug” occurs 14 times. I think this ratio captures how BG3 updates at large walk the line between dealing with stuff like progression blockers, and sating the inexhaustible horniness of the fanbase. There’s more to patch 7 than glitch-hunting and snogs, however. Due in September, it introduces dynamic splitscreen functionality, expansions for Honour mode, modding tools, new endings for evil playthroughs, and a brace of tweaks for Origin characters.
Let’s start with the splitscreen stuff. Baldur’s Gate 3 patch 7 will introduce dynamic split-screen merging when co-op players are close to each other, “because the power of friendship transcends all obstacles, including screen partitions”. You can toggle this directly from the HUD or within the RPG’s settings, in or out of combat. Adding to the intimacy, the patch allows for banter between characters assigned to different people in multiplayer, rather than it being limited to characters controlled by a single player.
As for Honour Mode, Patch 7 doles out Legendary Actions – that is, mode-exclusive special unique actions that become available in the right circumstances – to more creatures, “including the bulette, everyone’s favourite neighbourhood surgeon, Malus Thorm, and githyanki Ch’r’ai Tska’an, Ch’r’ai Har’rak, and Ptaris”. Ever the champion of the people, Larian have also given local hobgoblin Dror Ragzlin an Arachnid Compulsion ability that lets him sic a bunch of pit spiders on you.
As for the modding toolkit, this lets you fiddle with: items including weapons and armour; cosmetic stuff such as hair and textures; races, classes and subclasses, including variations on existing classes and their capacities; the user interface and, most appetising of all, the dice you’ll roll during those nail-biting skillchecks. You can read more in this official FAQ. Larian are collaborating with specific mod authors to roadtest the tools ahead of the patch’s September launch. The Steam blog has details of what they’ve done so far, together with a small landslide of notes about very specific fixes for Origin characters. Did you know, or mind overmuch, that Karlach used to brush the shaved part of her head during her idle animation at camp? Did that used to really wind you up? Well, it won’t after September.
The new campaign endings, finally, apply to both Origin characters, such as the Dark Urge, and custom creations. “Each new cinematic is yours to discover through nefarious means,” gloats the blog. The evil endings accompany various improvements and bug fixes for Dark Urge players in particular. For example, they’ve quashed the one where the rest of your party would look on blithely when you randomly murder a companion. Oh, “and Minthara will now respond accordingly if you’ve been stripped of Bhaal’s influence.”
It’s not all gravy: Dark Urgers may be displeased to know that you still can’t kiss Gortash. It’s been long enough since BG3 went 1.0 that I can’t remember who Gortash is without checking a wiki, but I am unsurprised to hear that some players want to kiss him. Go on, show me a Baldur’s Gate 3 character somebody doesn’t want to kiss. I’ll be back tomorrow and you’d best believe I will be Googling your answers, unless they horrify me, in which case let’s forget this ever happened.
