Baldur's Gate 3 News

Hello everyone! We hope you’re all well!

The New Year approaches and with it Baldur’s Gate 3’s release year. The team has been hard at work and is ready to share Patch 9 with you all. Be sure to catch our Panel From Hell on December 14th for the full unveiling and a few more surprises! In case you missed our teaser for The Game Awards, we highly recommend you watch that to whet your appetite.

On to the main topic: Patch 9 draws near and it will be roughly 33 GB, bringing the full game size to 84.7 GB.

As with all our previous patches, all saves made on Patch 8 or prior will no longer be compatible when updating to Patch 9.

So, let’s talk branching! We’ve got options if you want to continue saves from earlier patches, or if you want to make sure you’re staying current. Check out the below instructions for whichever method suits you best.

1. How to Update Your Game to Patch 9: If you want to play the most up-to-date version of the game and have never opted into any beta branches in the past, then good news: You don’t need to do anything! When the patch releases, you will receive the most updated version of the game as long as you have automatic updates enabled. To enable automatic updates, please follow the steps below:

• Right-click on the game in your Steam library
  
• Select Properties
  
• Click the Updates tab
  
• Select "Always keep this game updated" in the drop-down menu
  

2. How to Update to Patch 9 If You’ve Opted into an Earlier Beta Branch: If you previously opted into any beta for Patch 7 or earlier and want to ensure you get the most up-to-date content when Patch 9 goes live, then please follow the steps below:

• Right-click on the game in your Steam library
  
• Select Properties
  
• Click the Betas tab
  
• Select "None" in the drop-down menu
  

3. How to Continue Your Patch 8 Save: If you want to continue your progress from Patch 8, then take the following steps. Save files are not ‘deleted’ from your computer; they’ll remain in your folder, but you’ll only be able to load saves specific to their respective versions.

• Right-click on the game in your Steam library
  
• Select Properties
  
• Click the BETAS tab
  
• In the list under "Select the beta you would like to opt-in to", select Patch 8
  
• Close the properties menu
  

If you’d like to continue your save file on the current version, you can move to the Patch 8 beta branch now.

Important Note: If you want the option to go back to a previous patch, it’s best to make a new in-game profile and back up your local saves from the previous patch. You can do the following before or after you update to the latest version:

• Before starting a new playthrough, create a new profile by clicking the profiles button on the top left of the main menu. All your progress in the new patch will then be saved under this profile while your old saves are safe in the previous profile.
  
• As an extra safety measure, you can manually back up your savegames:
  
• Go to C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\PlayerProfiles (the fastest way to get there would probably be to copy the line below into the location bar in Explorer and hit Enter).
  
• %LocalAppData%\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\PlayerProfiles
  
• Find the folder that is named after the profile you used in the previous patch
  
• Copy and paste this entire folder into a backup location
  
• If you want to revert back to the previous patch, follow the instructions above and activate your old profile
  
• If you have somehow lost your progress by overwriting savegames and want to restore your old backed-up savegames simply copy over your old profile folder into its original location again: C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\PlayerProfiles
  
• Sync back to the patch8 beta branch with the instructions above and load your old savegames
  

A Note On Mods: If you have any mods installed, or were using any in previous versions of Baldur’s Gate 3, please remove them before updating your game. You can do this by checking both the ‘Mods’ and ‘Public’ folders in '..\SteamApps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\Data' - if either of those folders are present, please delete them before updating. If applicable, please also delete the file ‘modsettings.lsx’ in the profile folder. Further information about mods can be found at https://larian.com/support/faqs/mod-information_77

Quick question -- if Santa played D&D, what class would he roll?

If you wanna find out, you’ll have to join us on December 14th @ 10am PT / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET for a very special Panel From Hell featuring Video Games’ Own Geoff Keighley!

https://panelfromhell.baldursgate3.game/

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/larianstudios
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LarianStudios

Baldur’s Gate 3 devs Larian Studios are hosting another of their whimsical Panel From Hell streams in December, and they're teasing that we’ll get to find out more about the RPG threequel’s 2023 release. The broadcast will coincide with the launch of Patch 9 for Baldur’s Gate 3, although Larian are keeping schtum for now about what new things are coming to the game. Start gathering your party, folks.

Read more

Since Baldur's Gate 3 launched in early access back in 2020, Act 1—the only one available until the full launch—has been fattened up with giant badgers, musical instruments and D&D's objectively best race, but at this point you probably just want to know when the heck it's coming out. Good news: more information on the 2023 release date will be coming in December...
Read more.

Hello everyone,

Like a team of infernal reindeer, the next major update for Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming in for a smooth yuletide landing — yes, new features will be live before the year is out, accompanied by a festive Panel From Hell that will give you a peek at what’s to come in 2023!

In the Community Update accompanying that Panel From Hell, we’ll go into detail about some of the most discussed topics in the community. The good news is that we’re on track for release in 2023 – and we’ll have more on that in December. Acts 2 and 3 of the story are being actively playtested to ensure they’re up to the same level of polish and you’ll soon discover that there’s much more in the works (or already complete) than what you’ll encounter in an Early Access playthrough. Our goal is for even the players who have repeated Act 1 over and over again for hundreds of hours to feel like there’s a whole new experience in store for them at launch.

We're still paying close attention to all your feedback, bug reports, comments, your fan art and jokes – they sustain us, so please keep them coming or we will grow desperate and you’ll discover us consuming pigs’ blood in the middle of a Belgian motorway like a certain vampire spawn. Whatever it takes to get the game out, you know?

In all seriousness though, it takes time to tell a great story, implement feedback, and iterate on such a large game, so we want to thank you for your patience as we get closer to Patch 9.

We’ll see you in December – the dress code is “Christmas from Hell”. 🎄😈

[h2]Behind the Scenes: Motion Capture[/h2]

We’ve just opened up a new, dedicated motion capture space in Guildford, so while we have you here and we’re telling you things, we thought we’d give you a little peek behind the betentacled curtain into one of the most important tools in our storytelling arsenal: our motion capture tech.

A typical day at work at Larian Quebec

We have been working with motion capture for years, with mocap-ready studio spaces constructed at our offices in Ghent, Kuala Lumpur, Quebec and Dublin.

Having multiple locations has meant that each team could be empowered to try out new ideas, experimenting upon and refining animations without having to wait for another studio to come online. Having spaces across the globe also meant we could capture data anytime over the 24 hour period, allowing for continuous development.

Our team in Kuala Lumpur passionately discuss whether Gith are in fact more similar to platypus than humans. “They’re both egg-laying mammals.”

Early on, we began using XSens’ full-body motion capture which allowed animators and designers to quickly monitor and review data even when working from home — something that proved pretty helpful during lockdown. We integrated StretchSense gloves to improve the speed we can get finger data into the engine and completed major overhauls to our pipelines to allow the Optical Performance Capture data to be quickly imported into our build.
But as we first began development on Baldur’s Gate 3, we knew in order to achieve a truly cinematic feel we’d need to improve the quality of our technology and the speed of our mocap pipeline.

So we decided to expand on this idea last year with the launch of Larian Guildford; our first studio in the UK.

The actors when lunch arrives.

England has a wealth of talented performance capture artists and we knew we wanted to start working with them, but the biggest challenge would be to find a space large enough for the kind of choreography we require. Many locations were visited, measured, and considered before we finally settled on our current office* — an ideal location nestled in between a bustling high street and a place that sells 12 different kinds of sausage rolls.

Our Guildford mocap team tries to comprehend the physical feasibility of the Buthir/Grukkoh love scene.

The Larian Guildford Mocap Facility is big. This is the largest mocap space we have at Larian, measuring 14m x 12m, and currently features 40 Vantage V16 Cameras and 3 additional reference cameras, all running through our VFX motion capture software.
With a studio of this size we can easily record a dozen mocap actors at once — capturing everything from complex movements and gestures to stunt work with props.

A man in full mocap regalia thinks back to the time someone insulted his character build.

Bringing Baldur’s Gate 3 to life has been an incredible experience and we can’t wait for you to see the results come launch.

If you want to be part of this story, we are looking for new blood to help run the studio, producers and tech. Keep an eye out for listings.

And until then, we’ll just say see ya soon — there’s more information about the next patch still to come. Watch this space!

The illustrious Neil Newbon (voice of Astarion) directing a team of 12 in our Guildford studio, while wearing a beautiful kimono.

*Of course, no Larian studio could be complete without an induction into our grandest tradition of all: soggy carpets. Yes, like our Belgian studio in 2020, our new Guildford office got a light baptism of its own this year in the form of some pretty insistent British weather. Luckily it was only a very minor hiccup and we were able to seal the leak using a pie barm.

A moving interpretive dance performance representing Larian’s feelings on pipe leaks.

OK OK here's a bonus video -- please name this dance move:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]