Crossplay, Photo Mode And More

The final major update for the hit RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 has just landed, and it’s a massive one, filled with a ton of stuff the game’s community has been hoping for since launch. The patch notes are far too long to list here, totalling 48 pages. All of the post-launch updates to this game have been huge, but this is a real monster.

Instead, I’ll list some of the highlights. Beyond bug fixes and balancing changes, the bullet points are, according to Larian’s press release:

• Crossplay: Introducing crossplay between PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Mac, so players can party up with friends no matter what platform they play on.
• Photo Mode: Adventurers can snap photos of their escapades during cutscenes, dialogue, and combat, and edit them to their hearts’ content with a slew of post-processing effects (and stickers…)
• 12 New Subclasses: Brand-new subclasses; new abilities, VFX, animations, summons, and Oathbreaker Knight voiced dialogue; each class has a new way to play.
• Modding Toolkit Update: Patch 8 brings partial level editing and quality-of-life updates to BG3’s official Modding Toolkit.

The 12 new subclasses are:

• Bard – College of Glamour
• Barbarian – Path of Giants
• Cleric – Death Domain
• Druid – Circle of Stars
• Fighter – Arcane Archer
• Monk – Way of The Drunken Master
• Paladin – Oath of the Crown
• Ranger – Swarmkeeper
• Rogue – Swashbuckler
• Sorcerer – Shadow Magic
• Warlock – Hexblade
• Wizard – Bladesinging

In other words, if you haven’t played Baldur’s Gate 3 yet, you can now do so with more content and more options than ever before. If you have played the game, you can dive in again with all sorts of new options.

Photo Mode is something a lot of gamers have been pining for, and we should see some lovely user content sprout out of the community. The modding is even more exciting, though we’ll have to see exactly what “partial level-editing” entails. Larian says they’re “passing the torch to the community” at this point, since this will be the 8th and final major update for the game. That’s certainly a little bittersweet, but there’s no denying that the devs gave this their all, and it’s certainly exciting to think about what they’ll come up with next. Larian isn’t saying what that is just yet. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out.

Of course, if you need more RPGs in your life, Larian is also the studio behind the excellent Divinity: Original Sin games, which are very similar to Baldur’s Gate 3 and filled with the same brand of humor and excellent turn-based combat.

If you have some time on your hands, you can read the full patch notes right here.