Baldur's Gate 3 free download available now, makes some good changes

Gather around Baldur’s Gate 3 fans. Yet another hotfix has dropped just in time before Larian shuts down for the festive season.

What a year it’s been for Baldur’s Gate 3. Back when 2023 began, I remember people predicting that it would be Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Starfield competing in a PlayStation vs Nintendo Switch vs Xbox Game of the Year race. Little did we know what a 12 month of bangers it would be. In our review of Baldur’s Gate 3, we said, “I have gleefully joined the ranks of Baldur’s Gate 3’s evangelical, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. In a year groaning under the weight of so many exemplary games, it is frankly astounding to me how much taller Baldur’s Gate 3 looms over the rest of the pack. I’m not sure we’ll ever see anything quite like it again.”

Take a look at the game in action below.

I’m imagining that plenty of people will be diving in over Christmas, whether it’s because they’ve finally got time or the game has ended up in their stocking. Perhaps you’re simply a returning player looking to sink some more hours into this world. Well, the latest hotfix is available to download now and it introduces some much-needed changes. No game is ever truly perfect or finished.

The fix addresses “a number of crashes, blockers, and gameplay issues”. Devs wrote, “Have you found some characters’ faces turning into stretched eldritch horrors with pits of flesh in place of eyes? That should not be a problem anymore!” Thank goodness for that. The hotfix also addresses a problem where players couldn’t load a save if mods had been used on the PC version of the game.

Japanese language settings are now available on Steam and PS5 (in Japan only). There are plenty of other ironed-out bugs that have been seen to which you can read about in the full patch notes.