Following yesterday’s tweet about Patch 2’s new character epilogues, Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has now shared a lot more information on the upcoming update.
A new blog post goes into great detail to address the main criticisms of the otherwise highly acclaimed game: the disappointing performance in Act 3 and the cut content found by dataminers.
To begin with, Patch 2 is expected to improve performance across the board in Baldur’s Gate 3, though Larian said players will feel the most improvement in Act 3. Additionally, the developer teased further performance boosts for Act 3 coming later in September thanks to ‘new technology that’s been taking a bit longer to release than we expected’.
Bugs across the game and specifically in the final act are also going to be addressed heavily in Patch 2. That includes companions failing to comment on certain world events, which is being mistaken as ‘cut content’, according to Larian.
The blog then discusses the thorny topic of character epilogues. The developers believed the ending would get too long and decided to remove what they felt wasn’t working, but they’ve heard the feedback and will be reintegrating some of that content, starting with Karlach’s epilogue.
What’s been datamined is not really cut content but content that we didn’t want to release because we didn’t think it worked. We’re pretty strict with ourselves and our ideas. If it isn’t good – if it isn’t fun to play – it doesn’t make it into the game. One of the reasons why we trimmed the epilogue is because we were afraid the ending cinematics were becoming too long and would detract from the epicness of the experience. But clearly, not everyone agrees with us! So we’re going to do something about it.
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. It’s fiery, poignant, and gives her the ending she deserves.
Ultimately, Larian mused that any game has cuts, and they noted Baldur’s Gate 3 is still about two years late on the original timetable due to the studio’s desire to release the best possible game. Still, even with this in mind, they vowed to continue listening to feedback and improving what is undoubtedly an already great game even further.
Looking at their past two games, both Divinity: Original Sin titles received an Enhanced Edition, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Baldur’s Gate 3 getting a similar treatment at some point. As for DLC, Larian seems to be considering it in light of the incredible success enjoyed so far, even if CEO Swen Vincke said it wouldn’t be easy to craft an adventure for higher level characters.
