Larian has just revealed what new content will be added to the role-playing game next year. Patch 8 will probably be the last really big update.
Even though patch 7 sounded like the last big update for Baldur’s Gate 3 after one of the last big updates, some promised features were still missing. Now Larian has finally announced what is likely to be the final patch 8, and it contains a lot more than we would have expected.
But doing more than even the most loyal fans could hope for has almost become standard practice at Larian. Update 8 is planned for sometime in 2025 and will add a ton of new content and even features to the game. And yet, BG3 is already the best role-playing game under the sun!
This is all in patch 8
In addition to further bug fixes and the like, the 8th update for Baldur’s Gate 3 is supposed to have three major new features. Two of them were already known, one comes as a bit of a surprise. Let’s start with the known new features:
Crossplay
As required by the gaming gods.
This is how Larian describes the full implementation of cross-play with Update 8. Don’t be confused by this – there is there is already cross-progression in Baldur’s Gate 3. This means that you can continue playing the same save on both your PC and PlayStation or Xbox thanks to account linking.
With cross-progression, you can now play with everyone else on all other platforms in multiplayer. So you can form a party of four with a PC, a PS5, an Xbox Series, and maybe even a Mac player. Which class do you think suits which platform best?
Photo Mode
A photo mode that allows us to take fancy screenshots of fancy characters or environments at any time has become standard in most major productions. Baldur’s Gate 3 has fancy characters and environments, so fans have been hoping for such a mode for a long time. Patch 8 finally delivers it!
And as so often, Larian doesn’t do things by halves here. Photo Mode doesn’t just let you add a filter or frame and rotate the camera a little, as in some other games; you can have all the characters strike certain poses. There’s even a selfie camera. And yes, filters, frames, and stickers are available too.
12 new subclasses
And now for the big surprise: Update 8 brings even more subclasses into play, along with a whole host of new abilities. This means that you will soon be able to access an even wider range of classes without any mods. In total, a new subclass has been added for each of the twelve main classes. Each of these is based on an official template from the D&D E5e ruleset.
- Bard – College of Glamour: Extraordinarily extravagant bards who can play an important role in combat as both healers and controllers. And who just look incredibly stylish doing it.
- Barbarian – Path of Giants: Barbarians are usually strong, but none are as strong as this subclass. They can throw both objects and creatures particularly far and do additional damage with it. Boink!
- Cleric – Death Domain: Do clerics only ever have a place as lovable healers? Not on your life! This subclass specializes in death magic and can do some serious damage with it. Larian has even added a new Corpse Explosion ability. Did someone just mutter Diablo?
- Druid – Circle of Stars: Druids of the stars are not astronauts, but seek wisdom in the night sky. They can take on ethereal forms that give them unique powers.
- Paladin – Oath of the Crown: Paladins are almost always concerned with rules and order, and this Paladin even more so than the rest. A well-armored champion who fights in the name of the law, also protecting his companions from harm. For law and order!
- Fighter – Arcane Archer:No, fighters in D&D are not all mundane melee fighters in fat armor. The Arcane Archer, who is the exact opposite, proves this. He uses magic to enhance his arrows and takes out opponents from a distance.
- Monk – Drunken Master:The Drunken Master’s fighting style may have been made famous by the Jackie Chan movie of the same name, but it is based on a real martial art. While it actually mimics the staggering movements of a drunk, in Baldur’s Gate 3 your monk can regenerate his Ki points by drinking real alcohol and do much more mischief.
- Ranger – Swarmkeeper: Instead of a loyal dog or even a bear, this ranger relies on a whole swarm of animals. These can be bees, moths or even jellyfish.
- Rogue – Swashbuckler: Time to brandish your cutlass! If you want to feel like a pirate, then this subclass is for you. Here you can fight unfairly and obscure your enemies’ vision with a handful of sand.
- Sorcerer – Shadow Magic: This sorcerer has an eerie power in his blood, which he uses to perform dark shadow magic and even summon shadow dogs to get to his enemies. Hopefully they’ll let themselves be petted afterwards.
- Warlock – Hexblade: These warlocks have made a pact with a creature from the realm of shadows and were rewarded with a dark weapon that, among other things, resurrects slain enemies as allies.
- Mages – Bladesinging:Not all mages are shirt-sleeved ranged attackers; some know how to wield a blade and can even use it to enhance their spellcasting. Especially cool: in Baldur’s Gate 3, there are new animations with patch 8 that allow these mages to truly cast their spells through their blade.
When is all this coming?
Don’t count on the big update this year. It may well be that you have to wait a few more months before Patch 8 properly spices up the role-playing game. Before it goes live, a stress test is planned. The team wants to find out with the help of the community whether the patch could cause problems.
Said stress test is scheduled to start at the beginning of January at the earliest, but you will have the opportunity to register for it before then. Larian will announce more details soon. The last time, there were about six weeks between the beta for patch 7 and the release. If it is similar this time, March 2025 would be a possibility for the release of update 8.
