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By Carli Velocci Published November 27, 2024 10:06 AM
Larian Studios
While Larian Studios has said there won’t be any new content for the critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate 3, that doesn’t mean it’s slowing down on updates. The studio announced a new update Wednesday that will bring highly requested features to the 2023 game.
Patch 8, which will release sometime in 2025, is highlighted by three huge features. First up is crossplay and cross-progression, so players can hop into the game with friends on different platforms. Then there’s photo mode, a feature that, quite frankly, most games of this size should have. I can’t tell you the amount of times I paused Baldur’s Gate 3 to take a photo and had to deal with the UI getting in the way. It’ll allow for camera and lens adjustment, post processing, stickers, and, most importantly, over 40 character poses.
Baldur's Gate 3: Launch Trailer
However, since Baldur’s Gate 3 is known for its customization, it makes sense that Larian is adding new subclasses for each class in Patch 8. This will allow players to equip new abilities and specialize their experience further. For example, barbarians can choose Path of the Giants for Giant Rage, while warlocks can form a pact with a Shadowfell entity for Hexblade abilities. You can read up on the full list on Steam.
Larian will be testing the update sometime next year ahead of release on all platforms to help catch any bugs and problems.
The studio has been releasing consistent updates for this must-play PC game, and its patches are usually huge affairs with new features. Patch 7 earlier this year brought official modding support. The studio said that there have been over 3,000 mods downloaded over 70 million times since the patch’s launch, and it’s brought in countless players. In fact, the company’s director of publishing Michael Douse wrote on X in November that the game’s player numbers are actually up across the board, including 20% daily active users and 61% average daily Steam Deck users. “Mods are very good,” he wrote.
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
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