Custom Baldur's Gate 3 campaigns with "levels and lands comparable to the Skyrim modding community" could come "this year," says one of the RPG's experienced modders

Baldur's Gate 3 mind flayer with pale purple skin and facial tentacles stares ahead with glowing yellow eyes — (Image credit: Larian Studios)

The Baldur's Gate 3 community has been hard at work unlocking Dungeons & Dragons-style modding allowing for "level editing, save editing, and more" after the release of Patch 7 - and according to one modder, players might even get their hands on custom campaigns as soon as this year.

Baldur's Gate 3 offers hundreds of hours of great fun, but what could be even better than that? Hundreds more hours of custom, player-created content. That's what the community has been trying to allow for since Patch 7 dropped, for custom campaigns akin to Divinity: Original Sin 2's own - and as modder Brandon "SquallyDaBeanz" Giles tells PC Gamer in a recent interview, that kind of creator-driven content isn't all that far off now.

"The main challenges working on a custom campaign is the lack of certain toolkit features and documentation," Giles, who is currently working on restoring "cut" content from Act 2 himself, explains. "The community has done an amazing job delving into all the different systems that Larian used to make their game, but even with tutorials slowly making their way to Discord and YouTube now, it's still quite a learning curve!"

The modder continues, describing how difficult it can be. "If you hit a roadblock, you have to hope you can figure it out yourself or someone already solved a similar issue." The people heading the efforts are more than capable, however, and have found ways to utilize the toolkit like never before. "There have been huge strides from the community working on unlocking parts of the toolkit that weren't functional before," Giles reveals.

"The big one, of course, being custom maps that serve as the basis for new campaigns. A lot of art assets for custom maps have also been made functional." It's incredible, to say the least, and "pure wizardry" as Giles puts it. "The modding community leaders that have figured out how to add these features are amazing. It's pure wizardry from my perspective, but I'm extremely grateful that I can now work with the full potential of the tools."

The progress is a good sign of what's to come (and when). "I see a lot of progress being made in custom cutscenes and dialogue too, with several people working on adding entirely new companion characters. Most of the systems are already here, so I think we'll see many of them refined, improved, and released this year. Once these tools are more widespread, I think we'll see new levels and lands comparable to the Skyrim modding community!"

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"

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After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she's not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she's probably daydreaming about becoming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she's spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you'll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.