Final major patch drops this week, and includes official mod support.
If mid support includes the ability to access game assets and make custom maps/scenarios, this could be a truly evergreen game.
Patch 7 is out, and I guess the big thing is new evil endings. I loaded up my last Durge honor mode save and beat it. A bit expanded of an ending. I’d need to do it at least a couple more times to explore the branches. Very brutal ending, worthwhile, but probably won’t look at the whole choice tree myself.
Does “final” patch mean that they are truly done?
I think it means they are done with extra content and any patch from now on is for bug fixing.
Larian came out with a tweet after the patch saying that they weren’t done with content/feature patches but wouldn’t say what they were thinking because it would be “unfair” to the devs to be hassled about it (if it was late, wasn’t workable, etc)
I have a couple friends waiting for some mythical “done state” before they begin playing and I keep telling them to just play the thing. It’s not worth NOT playing for 18 months just because they might add a couple lines of dialogue, an end game scenario (that you can just load into anyway) or some QOL features. Like, I’m glad they fixed the “gotta have companions to trade in camp with them” nonsense but it wouldn’t have been worth not playing until they fixed it, either
Yeah, the only patch it was worth waiting on is when they introduced a bug that basically froze the game if you entered Wyrm’s Crossing. I paused playing for like 3 weeks until they fixes it (waaay to long to fix a game breaking bug). The quality of life stuff is nice, but it was playable without, and the extra dialogue is nice, but barely matters. It’s like 0.1% of the game experience?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a video game to have been finished by the time you purchase it. At least BG3 was released in a fun, playable state, but the video game industry as a whole has a bad habit of releasing unfinished work and expecting to make up with patches at a later date. I don’t blame your friends for being wary.
There was a statement along with the patch that they were winding down development on BG3 and beginning to move on to their next big project.
Me neither, but BG3 was released as a completely playable and finishable game. I’m not going to hold it against devs to continue refining and polishing a game post-launch or suggest that they failed by not releasing the game with those features. Had Larian stopped development on the game a year ago, I would have been perfectly content with what I bought.
That was the early reporting I saw. But then this:
Michael Douse, publishing director at Larian Studios, said that the big Patch 7, which added official support for mods and new evil endings, was not “the final update,” and that the developers will continue to work on the game, via a post on X.
Douse said that he doesn’t want to share any details on the next update due to concerns that it would put “undue pressure” on the development team, however, the developer assured players that, “there are things [the development team] said we’ll do that are still coming, and the chefs must cook.”
I agree. This is why I’ve been holding off on getting into World of Warcraft. I’ll check it out when it’s complete, and not before!
For real, though: cut content and unimplemented features have been a problem with video games since day one. I love that modern gaming allows devs some breathing room to put that stuff back in when they weren’t able to do it before release, due to time and money limitations. Of course, this can be abused (see No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk) but it can also rescue games that would have been DOA due to circumstances beyond the developer’s control a chance to shine (see No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk).
Some of my favorite games from the late 90s and early 2000s were basically unplayable at launch, and it took years for fan-patches to get them into a reasonable state. Sure, ideally, those games should not have been released in that state, but at the time, the option was, “release broken or never release at all,” and having “release broken then fix” as an option is not the worst possible compromise.
Also, not to belabor the obvious, but BG3 didn’t win every GOTY award that year by being a half-finished piece of cashgrab crap. My friends aren’t avoiding it because they fear some Kerbal 2 scenario, they’re just being reverse-FOMO babies that they might complete a cave dungeon and then learn six months later that Larian added an extra giant rat they didn’t get to kill 
FWIW the statement I am taking about I read literally today on Larian’s own site while I was downloading the patch.
Yeah, when the patch was announced they said that and everyone reported it as being the final “real” patch (content, QOL, etc besides minor fixes). Then Michael Douse posted “Good news, it’s not the final update” (vs just patch) and said they had more promised/mentioned stuff coming. It’s rather contradictory messaging by Larian but, given that he posted it in rebuttal to a tweet saying it was the final update, I’m inclined to assume he’s saying what it looks like he’s saying.
That abuse is why I think it’s reasonable for someone to avoid BG3 until they’re convinced the game is done. I like BG3, I paid full price for it, and my experience playing it has been overwhelmingly positive, but that doesn’t seem to be the norm these days. I feel as though many game publishers have nothing but contempt for me as a customer, so I typically wait until a game has been out for a while before purchasing it.
You are taking this situation far too personally. The larger game publishers don’t have contempt for you. That would require them to actually think about you. Which they do not.
They are simply capitalists trying to extract capital and you are just another microgram of ore in the capital mine.
Just look at the ET game from Atari. At least these days you’re not permanently stuck with whatever was put out at release.
I understand they don’t think of me personally. I feel as though they have contempt for all of us.
I finished up Honour Mode today. It was a good experience, but wouldn’t want to do it again. It really emphasizes how many paths Larian setup for everything and the only real “game over” comes from a combat wipe.
I know that seeing everything in one playthrough is impossible, but how does honor mode emphasize it? Genuinely curious since I’m unlikely to ever actually do a playthrough that way. I’m a scummy savescumming scumbag for life.
Since you’re committed, when plan A fails, you notice they give you a plan B and a plan C rather than reloading.