Baldur’s Gate III‘s most feature-filled patch yet is out today, not only fixing slowdowns caused by the eternal acts of thefts and violence reported earlier this week, but also bringing with it brand-new epilogues, providing closure to each player’s unique journey, as well as new game modes and so much more.
New Epilogues
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, six months after the events of Baldur’s Gate III‘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 the game’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, organized by Withers.
Honour Mode
Alongside the new epilogue content comes 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 over 30 new tweaks to all of the game’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, meaning 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 and how far they survived for. 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.
Custom Mode
Those who lack a penchant for punishment (or perhaps want to push it to its extremes) may avail of Custom Mode, a new game mode that allows players to pick and choose a type of experience best for them. With many options to pick from, a few favorites 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!
Other Improvements
This patch also lands with improved inventory access, allowing players to manage the inventory of all companions from one single user interface, regardless of whether or not they’re currently in your party. On top of all this, Patch 5 also brings performance improvements engineered as a consequence of the Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate III, which benefits all platforms.
Baldur’s Gate III is available now for PlayStation 5, PC, and Mac via Steam and GOG. An Xbox Series version is due out in December, with a release date announcement planned for The Game Awards 2023 on December 7.
