Good news, folks – Gale will soon go back to his regularly scheduled shoe-munching activities in Baldur's Gate 3 if you're one of the lucky RPG players who's been getting stuck into the Patch 8 stress test.
Baldur's Gate 3's final major patch isn't officially out for everyone just yet, but its stress test went live last week for those who successfully registered. That is, after it accidentally went live early on PS5 (which definitely wasn't supposed to happen). Being a stress test, not everything is in an absolutely perfect state yet – that's kind of the point – and Larian is already hard at work fixing issues that have surfaced, including Gale's lost appetite.
"Update 1 will be arriving later today, which is bringing a multitude of bug fixes, including ensuring that Gale will be able to fill himself up on magical items as normal, and radial menus are no longer missing their descriptions," Larian writes in the patch notes. "While this update brings some fixes for cross-play, we are still investigating instances of cross-play not working as intended."
Some of these fixes are for crashes and UI bugs, but there's loads of tweaks to Photo Mode, too, including added camera shutter SFX and improved depth of field sliders. It turns out that there was also an issue that could have allowed RPG players to lose important quest items permanently, but that's been resolved now that Larian has "fixed containers inside inventories not scattering their contents when they get destroyed."
As Larian points out, this update won't affect you at all right now if you're not playing on the Patch 8 stress test, but obviously any improvements and fixes that are figured out at this point are sure to carry over to the full Patch 8 launch, whenever that happens. Larian still hasn't said exactly when that'll be, but it's obviously a significant one when it includes 12 new subclasses, cross-platform progression, crossplay, and more. The extra good news is that Larian is "inviting even more of you to join the stress test this week," so if you're not already taking part, you might get your chance soon.
As the "incredible journey" to Baldur's Gate 3 wraps up, Larian Studios has its "full attention" on its next RPG: "The story ain't over yet."
