Baldur’s Gate 3 very clearly received years of care and effort before its release at the start of this month. And now, it’s clear Larian Studios has no desire to ease back on that passion.
The second patch for Baldur’s Gate 3 went live today, Aug. 31, and personally, we couldn’t be happier with what has been addressed.
Spoiler-free summary of Baldur’s Gate 3’s second patch
Today’s patch includes tons of smaller tweaks and fixes that address everything from optimization to reducing the file size of saves on your system. Hooray for efficiency. Players should see less CPU usage and less stuttering after this patch.
This patch also included many updates to the UI of the game, mostly centered around making it easier to manage your loot. Most notable of the UI changes are the addition of a rarity filter to the inventory and icons that will tell you which items are equipped by which characters.
A massive change came for the beloved Origin Character Karlach. Fans had been complaining that the possible endings for the character seemed a little lackluster and were put out that there weren’t more options for the player to participate in this regard. That’s changed in today’s patch, however.
Related: How to romance Karlach in BG3
A few days ago, Larian Studios announced it was going to be beginning its journey toward addressing character endings based on feedback from the community. At that time, we didn’t expect to see anything too significant so soon, but it seems we were mistaken. The changes made to Karlach’s ending have been omitted for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but you can read the full patch notes to learn more.
The Karlach change wasn’t even the main course of the second patch in Baldur’s Gate 3. Until today, once a Custom Character was created in a multiplayer campaign, they were a part of the party forever. They could not even be returned to camp. This meant that once you started a co-op campaign, it had to stay that way; you could never have your friends jump into your game to hang out for an evening and then leave.
Related: Custom Characters in BG3 multiplayer explained
But today’s patch introduced “Withers’ Wardrobe of Wayward Friends,” which allows you to dismiss co-op party members from your campaign. Now, your friends can finally be one-off characters in your campaign if they’re too busy to commit, or if they’re simply unavailable for a night, their character can be as well and an Origin Companion can take their spot in the party.
