The second major patch for Baldur’s Gate 3 will improve the game’s performance — particularly in Act 3, where it often struggles — and begin a push to expand on the game’s epilogue, including fleshing out the endings for the Karlach character as many fans have requested.
That’s according to a new community update that the developer, Larian Studios, posted to Steam on Tuesday. The developer wasn’t specific about the timing of Patch 2, but said it was “just around the corner.” Larian has been updating the game at an impressive pace since its launch four weeks ago, pushing out several hotfixes and one major bug-squashing patch already.
With Patch 2, the team said its focus would expand beyond fixing bugs to improving performance and answering some of the most prevalent fan requests. Larian also took time to address proliferating community reports of “cut content” that had been datamined, dismissing claims that this was the result of the game being rushed to release. Larian argued that most of the reported cut content was either the result of bugs — for example, companion reactions that don’t trigger as they should — or deliberate creative decisions that Larian took for the good of the game.
One of those decisions was to streamline the game’s epilogue “because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience,” Larian said. However, this is being revised in the face of fans disappointment at the resolution — or lack of it — of several story threads. “Clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.”
Many players feel that the companion character Karlach is poorly served by the conclusion of the game, and this is the first part of the epilogue that Larian will expand in the next patch. The first, but not the last. “We’ve started expanding the epilogues and you’ll see the first results of that in Patch 2 with the addition of a new optional ending with Karlach,” Larian said. “It’s fiery, poignant, and gives her the ending she deserves.”
The other major focus for Patch 2 is improving game performance across the board, but especially in its third act. “The city of Baldur’s Gate itself is ambitious. Technically, narratively, and in scope,” Larian explained. “One of the biggest issues with creating games is that technology is always trying to keep up with your ambition, and here we’ve been hit pretty hard by some setbacks. We know that Act 3’s performance isn’t as good as the first two acts, but the good news is that Patch 2 is bringing major performance improvements to the entire game, but more specifically to Act 3 where you’ll feel it the most.”
Patch 2 won’t be the last word in those improvements, either. “We’ll also be working throughout September to improve performance in Act 3 further with new technology that’s been taking a bit longer to release than we expected,” the developer said.
In terms of quality-of-life improvements and feature additions, Larian mentioned two features that it’s working on, although it stopped short of saying these would make it into Patch 2. The first, as previously reported, is the ability to change your character’s appearance mid-campaign, but Larian said “we don’t have a release date for that.”
The other is a feature allowing players to get rid of co-op party members who join their campaigns, so they can continue without offline friends’ avatars hanging around like ghosts. This will be whimsically framed as Withers’ Wardrobe of Wayward Friends. “Simply place any unwanted party members in this peculiar piece of paranormia, and they’ll out of sight and mind until the jolly co-operation continues,” Larian said in a promotional image. Larian hopes to launch this feature “very soon,” indicating that this one at least might make it into Patch 2.
There’s no release date for Patch 2 yet — although Baldur’s Gate 3’s release on PlayStation 5 on Sept. 6 would be fitting, wouldn’t it?