The Barbarian class comes to Baldur's Gate 3 alongside more features and improvements
Don't expect the game to be released this year, either.
During today’s Panel From Hell: 5th Edition live show, Larian announced and released Baldur's Gate 3 seventh major patch, Absolute Frenzy.
The patch hails the arrival of the playable Barbarian class and the introduction and Improvised Weapons, alongside many other additions, changes and fixes, bringing the game further down the path toward 1.0.
Patch 7 adds a fog of war mechanic that obscures unexplored rooms, makes tweaks to Darkvision and light/dark detection, and much more. Of course, it also adds the Barbarian class as mentioned above, and plenty of changes and additions made possible by the community. The full patch notes are dense, and provide a more in-depth look at what’s changed, but below are some highlights.
Baldur's Gate 3 - Update 7
New Class: Barbarian
- Merciless in the heat of battle, fueled by nature’s fury, and boasting chaos energy louder than a thousand reality TV stars combined, Barbarians are the latest class to join Baldur's Gate 3
- Subclass 1: Wildheart Barbarians choose a Bestial Heart to inspire, protect and guide them, receiving different combat abilities and facial piercings depending on their choice.
- Subclass 2: Berserker Barbarians pull from a reservoir of pure fury, turning their Rage into a Frenzy that grants two new bonus actions – Enraged Throw wreaks additional damage to enemies and inflicts the prone status, and Frenzied Strike allows Berserkers to attack twice using a bonus action like Improvised Weapon.
- Improvised Weapons: Almost anything has the potential to become a deadly projectile to be hurled at your foes! Improvised Weapons do damage based on their weight, and characters can wield an Improvised Weapon that weighs up to three times their Strength ability score. In short, this means with a high enough Strength stat, you can use something as big as a Mindflayer as a tool for thwacking your foes - although we don’t think he’d like it.
- Thrown Weapons: Patch 7 also adds throwable Daggers, Javelins, Handaxes, and Spears that allow you to attack from a distance, making melee combat feel more dynamic.
- Total UI Overhaul: Patch 7 includes a total overhaul of Baldur’s Gate 3’s HUD UI, making it slicker, streamlined, and easier to use.
- Stealth & Exploration: Improving exploration in Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the cornerstones of this patch. We want to ensure that as you explore, the surprises that are waiting around the corner stay just that: a surprise!
- Light & Dark: We’ve improved how light and dark areas are detected, meaning you’re less likely to miss when in daylight and hiding from NPCs is more precisely affected by the darkness around you.
- Darkvision: Improved visualization means that characters using Darkvision won’t see a brightly lit room, but will instead see in the dark via a cone of vision effect.
- Room Portals: Blackened barriers that cover the doors of unexplored rooms and conceal the characters and objects within them.
- New Magic Loot: We’ve placed a fresh batch of Magic Loot throughout the world, ranging from helmets and gloves to lightning-charged tridents, each granting its owner an impressive stat boost, buff, or additional perk.
- Upgraded Cinematics: We’ve improved nearly 700 cutscenes – upgrading visuals, tweaking characters, adding and enhancing animations, and improving pacing.
Early Access continues to be a key part of Larian’s development process, which the studio said allows it to iterate and improve with feedback to make the best game possible.
It's internal goal post for release is "a quality bar rather than a date," so a date will come, the team said, when its even closer to meeting the goal. Right now, its expectation is that Baldur’s Gate 3 will be released out of Early Access in 2023.