The latest Baldur’s Gate 3 patch makes the hardest fight in the game harder

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 is live, beefy, and oh boy, does it implement some fixes I am happy about — and some that terrify the daylights outta me.

First and foremost, welcome Mac users! You’re now able to play on Mac. Make sure you check out the minimum specification requirements, and don’t forget to uninstall and reinstall the game (if you played Early Access) to ensure a smooth transition to the full release.

Also, the Magic Mirror is live, so players can give their characters a much-needed haircut (or complete facial rearrangement).

With those two big updates out of the way, we can dive into the details of this patch. Like I mentioned, it’s big.

Light spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 Act 3 follow.

One thing I mentioned in my PS5 review is how hard to see everything is. I mentioned that because the icon that denotes what items in your inventory are equipped to your character was so small, I mistakenly sold the clothes off my body. Well, it seems Larian Studios heard me by increasing the size of the equipped icon on console. It seems like the powers that be also heard my gripes about discovery and exploration with the controller, improving “how the game handles object selection on controller.”

Though I switch between BG3 console and PC pretty regularly, these fixes might make PS5 my main mode of play.

Patch 3 also adds one serious quality-of-life update that will make long rests less frustrating. As I get later in the game, it’s getting harder to acquire enough food for long rests. It is a pain in the behind to go to camp, realize you don’t have enough food for a long rest, leave camp, buy food, and come back. Back in Act 1 and 2, you could trade with Volo, buying food from him without having to leave camp. But for some reason, this ability was disabled in Act 3. No more! Larian restored his business license, allowing you to trade with him when he’s in your camp. Hooray!

Some of these fixes come a bit late for me but are nevertheless welcome additions. When you level up a character, the game will now queue up all party members who need leveling up, so you don’t have to select each one individually.

There have also been significant improvements to the Cazador fight:

• Cazador now cannot turn into or remain in his Mist Form if in magical sunlight, such as that created by the Daylight spell.

• Fixed Ansur’s Stormheart Nova blasting right through the ice shields you can hide behind.

I really wish that one had been fixed sooner. The Ansur fight was way harder than it needed to be, especially because I thought hiding behind the ice pillars would protect me.

Though Patch 3’s notes are extremely long, they’re worth reading for yourself for all the hilarious out-of-context updates. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Improved the death poses of rats.
• Party member corpses will now be removed from the backpacks of characters being dismissed.
• You can no longer arrange for a coffin to be made for the bereaved couple’s child, murder the coffin maker, then go back and tell the couple everything was A-OK. This was a bug, you monsters.

But while I’m loving pretty much everything I’m seeing in these patch notes, some of these fixes are just plain unnecessary:

• Added some lovely blood spurts when Volo carries out his expert operation.
• Reading shop signs will no longer be considered a crime.

• Halsin will no longer give you one last kiss before the final battle unless you’re actually in a relationship with him.

Okay, that last one was not something that should have been fixed! Who wouldn’t want a smooch from the big bear guy right before you might die? It’s comforting!

Here are some more unnecessary updates:

• In Tactician Mode, Raphael can now Multiattack twice per turn.
• Raphael’s Wisdom Ability Score has been increased.
• Increased Raphael’s level to level 16.
• Raphael’s Diabolic Chains are now more powerful and can hit up to three targets with slightly reduced damage.

The fight against Raphael in the House of Hope is brutal enough, but did you really need to buff the…ahem… hell out of him?? At least Larian also fixed a bug where party members will no longer be permanently afflicted by Harleep’s Draining Kiss debuff.

Even Larian admits that some of these updates didn’t really need to be included but did so anyway for funsies.

• Nobody asked for this, but we made the ceremorphosis scene on the nautiloid more horrifying. You’re welcome.

With all these updates, I’m looking forward to spending another 300 hours in this game.