Baldur’s Gate 3’s next patch is set to be a big one, so much so that Larian has announced it’ll be coming slightly later than originally intended.
Larian writes: "Like a holiday turkey overstuffed with a moist heap of meaty bread, so too have you overstuffed our collective heart here at Larian. Since our launch in August, over 1.3 million players have completed Baldur's Gate 3, which, to continue the holiday metaphor, has made even the most blackened Belgian heart expand to at least three times its normal size. We’re so thrilled to see so many of you are loving - and, you know, finishing - the game. Even now, doctors are closely monitoring our David Walgrave in case he begins to show signs of smiling.
So to all of you veteran players of Baldur's Gate 3 - and those still waiting to experience these Forbidden Realms for themselves - today we bring you another reason to return to Faerûn: Patch 5, our most feature-filled patch since launch, comprised of brand new epilogues that bring closure to each player’s unique journey, along with new game modes, and so much more."
From notable remakes like 'Dead Space' to long-awaited follow-ups like 'Alan Wake II', here are TIME’s favorite games of the year.
You know you had a very rigorously competitive year with plenty of variety in opinion when neither Wonder (#7 on this list) nor Tears of the Kingdom (#4) are in the top 3.
Personally, I really enjoyed SMB Wonder and it's my personal GOTY, but my point is that this year was insane for games.
I would have played BG3 and Alan Wake 2 day 1 if they didn’t go digital only at launch. I have BG3 ordered so I’ll play it when it releases physically for PS5 but Alan Wake 2 I may end up waiting for a long time since they haven’t announced a physical copy yet that I know of.
I completely mirror those sentiments. I havent played either yet and I cant wait to either but holding on for physical or a decent sale price to go digital
Alan Wake doesn’t have the greatest combat but the tlc put into it is evident. There is definitely nothing like it.
I wouldn’t be opposed to it taking most GOTY awards.
I have yet to play Baldurs Gate 3 or Alan wake but there is no denying 2023 has been a great year for gaming. With that said, my personal favorite game this year is Dave the Diver. Pure Joy.
Both the PC and PS5 versions of Baldur's Gate 3 will get performance improvements with the next patch, and that's thanks to all the optimization work done for the Xbox Series X|S port.
One can only wonder how the PS5 getting performance improvements thanks to the Series S is even possible since according to some people, that console is not a current gen console. /S
Anyway, amazing work by a very talent non-lazy developers at Larian Studios!
I can´t wait to play BG3 on my SX!
It’s ironic isn’t it? Nothing to do with the S being a capable machine. Quite the opposite. But the game needed optimization and were getting it now. Had there never been an S we might have got it sooner as it certainly would've freed up developers and testers.
Such spectacular insight @Babadook7!
This is why I'm thankful that Microsoft bought all those developers so we could get updates faster. Having to develop for PlayStation too was holding back all those developers and Microsoft finally freed them up.
/s
Tbf, that's what a lot of what Digital foundry have said, having a baseline as the S means that Devs have to optimise for that, and those optimisations get passed up to the Series X and PS5.
Overall I've not really been impressed with this consoles gen in regards to performance anyway, most are 30fps locked now and to get to 60fps a lot of titles offer below par image quality, it's why I decided to jump to PC as my main and PS5 for exclusives. 720p in some titles 3 years in just isn't excusable to me.
@dook... Larian may have not found the problem and left things the way they are had it not been for tweaking and optimizing the S version. It was by pure accident they found the problem in the first place as they felt things were just hunky dory on the PS5 and SX versions having ported from the PC.
@darthv72
Thanks for the comment. But I disagree about Lorian optimizing because of the S. They knew there was a big problem since the PC version shipped, or even before that. And yes, they struggled for a long time with the S version specifically, but not all of that was helpful in the long run. It's tough to say whether the S actually helped the other platforms overall, or hindered them, because the "S" certainly seems to have used a lot of resources.
Whats the point of disagreeing with the comment here when the tweet confirming the work on the Xbox version allowed the improvements comes directly from someone in Larian?
This isnt really speculation about whether it happened that way or not, they are the ones saying it did
@Onilink
I don’t know who is directly disagreeing with Larian here? Can you be specific?
"Had there never been an S we might have got it sooner as it certainly would've freed up developers and testers."
Highly unlikely. There wasn´t an Xbox Series S holding the PS5 version back and split-screen mode on PS5 still end up running like crap.
It was the Series S optimizations that made it possible to PS5 to have better performance, that´s what the developers said themselves, so armchair developers on N4G got slapped in the face from Larian themselves.
I mean, the weaker console that were supposed to hold back the generation actually end up helping the more powerful ones.
You can´t make sh!t It is what it is.
@obscure_observer
“Highly unlikely. There wasn´t an Xbox Series S holding the PS5 version back and split-screen mode on PS5 still end up running like crap.”
Very likely. There was indeed a major attempt to develop and launch the S version with PS5 version. That sucked dev time, therefore just because they failed to launch on that platform does not prove your point. It’s evidence for mine.
“It was the Series S optimizations that made it possible to PS5 to have better performance, that´s what the developers said themselves, so armchair developers on N4G got slapped in the face from Larian themselves.”
It wasn’t S optimizations that made it “possible”. Poor choice of words. It was work done on Xbox that applied to other versions as well. The same thing happens all the time and most likely happened the other way too, while optimizing for ps5 and pc. Theres nothing magical about working on S that gives you free PS5 optimizations. I’m an actual game dev, you seem extremely ignorant about how this stuff works.
“I mean, the weaker console that were supposed to hold back the generation actually end up helping the more powerful ones.”
Nope. Larian never said that S is helping here more than it’s hindering.
What's even funnier, is that it's LITERALLY and actually Larian studios saying thanks to the Xbox for the optimizations coming to the PC and PS5 and we still have people on this site that says it has nothing to do with that.
This patch is incredible on PS5 split screen. Previously, there was a pause (complete framerate drop) last several seconds every time a character switch or summons occured (which is quite a regular occurrence, especially during combat). It wasn't a game-breaking problem as such, due to it being a turn-based game, but it was annoying.
This patch has completely solved the problem (at least at the 30 hour point in the game). The entire thing runs perfectly smoothly.