Baldur’s Gate III Early Access Patch 5 Detailed

Larian Studios held its third Panel from Hell for Baldur’s Gate III. During the panel, studio founder and game director Swen Vincke provided details on the next major update for its Early Access version, which will launch on July 13, 2021.

The Patch 5 update is primarily feature-focused, and will include the new Active Roll system, where players can apply spells and bonuses to the dice rolls, including seeing all of the effects and modifiers being applied in the UI rather than through background calculations. The update also features background goals, where a created character’s background (such as Folk Hero or Urchin) will provide its own secret mini-quests. Undertaking actions appropriate to that background will grant rewards, encouraging players to take actions aligned to their characters.

Another addition is the camp resources feature. Players will now need to use supplies such as food to get full use of a long rest. The patch will also add contextual mini camps based on the player’s current environment when they take a long rest rather than simply returning them to their HQ. Enemy and ally AI will be improved, including unarmed enemies picking up discarded weapons, as well as a non-lethal attack option, “old-school” point-and-click dialogue, and a number of bug fixes.

Baldur’s Gate III is based on the latest fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. Its story sees the player character and some others captured and forced to host a Mindflayer tadpole before the airship they are on crashes. In addition to the player character creation options, there are five origin stories in the Early Access version, which offer pre-generated characters in a similar manner to Divinity: Original Sin II. For now, these origin characters cannot be selected to play as but are available as recruitable party members. The Early Access version is currently available on PC, Mac, and Google Stadia and includes access to the game’s first act.