Baldur's Gate 3 patch lets your characters get (literally) battered and bruised

Baldur's Gate 3
(Image credit: Larian, Reddit / murfmur)

The latest Baldur's Gate 3 patch means your party will bear the scars of your terrible decisions.

Larian released Baldur's Gate 3 Patch #6 last night. As well as the new Grymforge region - an ancient fortress filled with new quests and NPCs - and the Sorcerer class, the patch notes confirm the addition of new spells and martial moves, balance changes, and a suite of other improvements. One particularly apparent change, however, is that characters will now "become dirty, sweaty, bloodied and bruised during their adventures."

As players are discovering, that's having quite the impact on the appearance of their party members. One post shows a player's character absolutely covered in blood, which has spattered all over their face and armour, with a series of gnarly scratches across the bridge of their nose. Another post sees Cleric Shadowheart sporting a number of huge bruises over their face.

Blood spatters might not be a wholly new idea - the concept of being 'Bloodied' even exists within Dungeons & Dragons' fourth edition - but seeing characters battered and bruised, (or even dirty from too many nights in the campsite), is certainly a novel idea. It'll be interesting to see whether walking up to an encounter covered in viscera will ever have an impact beyond the visual, but if a game was going to pull that idea off, it feels like it would be Larian's take on the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

Baldur's Gate 3 is currently still in early access, with a full launch expected some time in 2022.

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Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.