Baldur's Gate 3 boss says Patch 8 was worth it: with 169k Steam players nearly 2 years later and "mod support thriving," Larian can "focus on making our next big thing as good as we can"

Following the long-awaited arrival of Patch 8 for Baldur's Gate 3, the Dungeons & Dragons RPG's final big update, Larian Studios is looking toward its next big project – and according to lead Swen Vincke, mod support should keep fans busy in the meantime.

Patch 8 is here, bringing everything from cross-play to 12 new subclasses, such as the Circle of Stars Druid, to Baldur's Gate 3. It's the game's last big update, and while developers have said they could keep "making changes until the end of time" to the RPG gem, they'd then "never be able to create something new" – and that's exactly what Larian will now be doing. That doesn't mean the beloved Baldur's Gate threequel will die, however.

In fact, it's more alive now than it has been in a while, and it's all thanks to Patch 8. As studio head and game director Vincke writes in a recent post, "Feeling good today about where we are with BG3." Attached is a screenshot showing the peak 24-hour Baldur's Gate 3 player count of over 169,000 users – the RPG's highest since January 2024. "Patch 8 got a lot of people playing again. It took a lot of development effort, but I'm happy we did it."

The lead continues, stating that mod support is likely to keep Baldur's Gate 3 fans entertained for a good while. "With mod support thriving, I think the game will now continue to do well for quite some time."

This gives Larian the opportunity to shift its focus to a new project and time to make it just as much of a banger. "It gives us room to focus on making our next big thing as good as we can, and that focus is more than welcome. We've got big shoes to fill," Vincke adds.

Larian Studios previously revealed that it's cooking up its own "two very ambitious RPGs" after all, with one of the mysterious projects having been codenamed Excalibur – potentially pointing to an Arthurian game of sorts. Dungeons & Dragons stans will be eating good regardless, though, as Hasbro is also "talking to lots of partners" about the next Baldur's Gate game already, and is working on a separate new D&D game, too.

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