Baldur’s Gate 3’s enormous final content update – which has been undergoing public stress testing for a good few months now on PC – finally has a release date, and is launching for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC next Tuesday, 15th April.
Patch 8 was unveiled last November, with developer Larian Studios promising some major final additions before it waved goodbye to Baldur’s Gate 3 and moved onto pastures new. These included cross-play, a photo mode, the long-awaited addition of split-screen co-op on Xbox Series S, and most significant of all, new subclasses for each of the game’s 12 existing classes.
It seemed like quite the parting gift, then, but rather than slinging it at fans and calling it a day, Larian announced Patch 8 would initially undergo public testing ahead of a full release so it could “catch things before they [could] become an issue once a patch has been released.”
Testing eventually got underway at the end of January after a bit of a premature start and, following a steady period of finessing, the end is now firmly in sight. Larian confirmed Patch 8’s 15th April arrival in post on social media, noting it’ll be marking the occasion with a special Twitch stream a day later, taking an especially close look at its new subclasses.
Additionally, it’s discounting the acclaimed RPG by 20 percent on Steam ahead of Patch 8’s full release, meaning anyone yet to leap onboard the Baldur’s Gate 3 appreciation train can pick it up for £39.99 until 21st April. Which is a bargain route to Withers’ “big naturals”, if you ask me.
As to what Larian’s doing next, that’s still something of a mystery. Last year, the studio confirmed it would moving away from Baldur’s Gate and Dungeons & Dragons entirely, teasing its new project would be “big and ambitious”, and “new in the sense that it is different from the things that we’ve done before.”
But while Larian is moving onto new things, Baldur’s Gate 3’s remarkable success inevitably has Dungeons and Dragons owner Wizard of the Coast already dreaming of a sequel. Last April, it confirmed it was “now talking to lots of partners” about the next Baldur’s Gate game, but later insisted it wasn’t “in a hurry” to get a fourth instalment made.