Larian Studios has detailed the latest patch, due to arrive in the near future, for its Early Access version of Baldur’s Gate III, and it’s so big it dwarves the previous three patches combined.
Patch 4: Nature’s Power includes a veritable feast of quality of life changes and overhauls to the fledgling version of Baldur’s Gate III. but the biggest takeaway from the announcement is the addition of the Druid class. This is especially interesting due to their pretty awesome shapeshifting abilities. Drawing from the power of nature, Druids are able to become creatures such as Spiders, Cats, Polar Bears, Ravens, and Dire Wolves to adapt to the challenges ahead of them.
The patch also adds fixes and tweaks to multiplayer, cinematics, and various granular aspects of how the game plays. The finer details are below.
- Optional Loaded Dice: This optional change helps smooth out the extremes of the bell curve. It retains the core elements of RNG, ensuring a player can no longer be unlucky or super lucky with several dice rolls in a row. The system also runs in two parts. Dice rolls in dialogue are different to those in combat, and this change only impacts the d20. Not damage rolls.
- Speak with dead and polished cinematics: Cinematics in special cases like Speak with Dead have made huge improvements along with the ability to join conversations as an animal. The patch also adds improved animations with the Druids in the Grove as they cast spells and use their abilities. Major improvements have been made both in animation and lighting, which… though not obvious in this paragraph of text, look really neat in the game. Channel your imagination.
- Multiplayer: Those embarking on their adventure together with friends can now see other players Equipment, Spells, Inventory and Character Sheets. As well as the ability to take and place items to and from. There is no lock function – that will come in a future patch. Your friends could for example steal your items, because there’s no lock function yet, but there’s no rush, because they’re your friends. They wouldn’t do that to you, would they?
- Quality of life: A series of much-requested features have been implemented. Players can now target friends and enemies with spells and equipment by clicking on their portraits. As an alternative to trying to click on a character in the world, players can now easily select and attack whoever they want from the UI. We also added a flee button for the errr… tacticians among us. And using torches has never been easier thanks to the long-awaited addition of the torch button!
- Improved Cinematics: Narrative cinematics have been given a new lease of life thanks to a fresh lighting pass, resulting in some truly spectacular sequences in which the story of BG3 is told.
Larian also announced it is opening two new studios in Guildford, England, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia that will work in unison with its already established studios in Belgium, Ireland, Russia, and Canada.
Baldur’s Gate III is out now on PC in Early Access.
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