Larian, the studio behind the incredibly popular and much-nominated-for-game-awards Baldur’s Gate 3, released a new major patch to the game today (well, a week ago today). There’s a whole lot of stuff in that patch, but the thing I’m most excited for is the opportunity to return to my only complete save file and beat the final boss again so I can see the epilogue they’ve added! My main criticism of BG3’s ending was how abrupt it felt given that you sorta just get through the final cinematic, see a couple other scenes, and then it’s over. No idea who followed up on what and how anyone is doing since, like, the last I saw of Asterion was him running from sunlight as it slowly burned him to a crisp. So now I can go back and see how it all wraps up an appropriate in-game six months after the final battle! I’m very excited for this, which is important because I still haven’t gone back to playing ANY of my other BG3 save files since I stopped playing after hurting my own feelings with how evil and awful I was in my Evil Dark Urge file. I’m finally almost ready to get over that. Ready enough to update the game, anyway, though it might take a bit for me to actually play it since I’ve still got Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and Spider-Man 2 to finish [I actually played it for too many hours the day after I wrote this and haven’t stopped playing it since]. And Armored Core VI at some point, though I might not make myself wait until after I’ve played that since it’s entirely possible that I might just not really enjoy it. I still haven’t played more than the first level and a couple training things.

I really appreciate that Larian made it abundantly clear in their community update that you didn’t need to play the game all over again to see the epilogues. For a game with so many decisions, so much game to play, and so very many updates and changes since release, Baldur’s Gate 3 has done a great job of avoiding any updates that would require you to restart your playthrough from the beginning. As someone whose job is testing software, I am incredibly aware of how difficult it can be to incorporate existing data when your software gets updated in a smooth and seamless manner and I’ve never worked on anything as complex as a video game. It’s a huge deal of work and while it is sometimes impossible to avoid breaking save files, they’ve managed to avoid it aside from a limited number of edge cases (one of which I encountered but was able to fix thanks to help from the community: always search your error message text AND the numbers associated with it if you’re looking for someone who had a similar issu and ALWAYS include both of those if you’re starting a support or community forum post about an error). It’s impressive work, but it seems like they were always prepared to continue updating and supporting the game in this manner since this sort of thing is absolutely NOT a thing you can add after the fact. You have to plan for this style of updating and maintenance from pretty close to the beginning if you want to do it.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m not plugged into the various online communities that have formed around the game or just because I stopped checking Twitter and don’t see anyone talking about it (seems like most of the video game world is staying with Twitter despite how far it has sunk), but this whole patch caught me off guard. I’ve barely played in a month and a half, since the fateful day that I made one Dark Urge decision that had me feeling disgusted and depressed afterwards on account of the carnage stacked at my character’s feet, so I wasn’t really expecting more updates. I think I’ve just filed all of my “changes to games I love” thoughts under the “never gonna happen” blanket that I’ve had to put up to keep myself from getting routinely disappointed about there being no Master Mode for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I honestly forgot to see if there were any plans for future updates to BG3 and what those updates might entail. Intellectually, I knew there would be more updates as they continued to patch bugs, improve smooching between the characters of various sizes, shapes, and heights, and do whatever it is they have planned for the game in the long term (I would really love to get beyond level 12, for one thing), but I just stopped thinking about it after Patch 3. It’s not like I haven’t had other stuff to do. I’ve STILL got books to read sitting my on reading chair from months ago because I played BG3 instead of reading for a while (and am still not reading things because I’m catching up on my video games).

I’m planning to take another vacation around the winter holidays this year, perhaps a staycation since I really need to destress and rest for a while, and doing a deep dive into my video game and book backlog sounds like just the thing. As does endlessly playing Wildermyth (my current time sink) or going back to pushing my various BG3 saves forward as I bounce from one to the next instead of pushing one all the way through before starting another. There’s just so much I want to do! Honestly, the holidays might be the perfect time for it, too, since it’s not like I have much planned for them anyway. I’m not particularly fond of the winter holidays on account of past family trauma and stuff (the only holiday I’ve attempted to actually reclaim so far is Thanksgiving), so I’m not even looking to make plans. The only reason I might even not work rather than use the quiet to get a lot done when everyone’s gone is because I’ve still got sick/personal days (which renew every year on my work anniversary) that I’ve got to spend in the next month. Might as well spend them on giving myself a week off, you know? Get them all out of the way at once so I can maintain my overtime habits the rest of the month.

I think I just convinced myself to take time off and, if the update manages to run its course while I’m making dinner and eating it (while watching some Hunter x Hunter again so I can listen to the most recent episode of Media Club Plus (which is a new podcast by some of the folks from Friends at the Table as they take Jack, who has never seen Hunter x Hunter or much anime at all, through it and analyse it in two or three episode chunks)), maybe I’ll even play some BG3 tonight instead of wrapping up my latest Wildermyth campaign [I finished the Wildermyth campaign that night since the update failed on my PC and, as I noted above, haven’t played anything but BG3 since the day after]. After all, BG3 is available on a console and has a much lower barrier to play than Wildermyth, which is only available on my computer. Maybe someday Wildermyth will have a console port (the current roadmap has it as a 2024 goal, but I have no idea how accurate that is anymore) or maybe I’ll eventually get a Steam Deck to play some of those dozens of fun indie game I’ve bought and never played because I can’t be bothered to turn on my computer frequently enough. Who knows. Anything is possible. All I know is that I’m probably spending a decent amount of time on BG3 in the near future.