Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 notes outline brilliant new epilogue, modes

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 5 is here, bringing 30 GB of updates, including an expansive new epilogue, two new modes, and a whole lot more. The epilogue, which Larian teased as Withers’ afterparty, sounds like it fulfills the studio’s original, promised vision for the game, while Honour Mode puts your skills to the test, and Custom Mode gives you more control over how the game unfolds.

The new epilogue takes place six months after the game ends, as Withers brings your companions – or what’s left of them – back together for a final reflection on everything that happened. The event plays out differently depending on the choices you make during the game, and Larian promised “a giant tree” of permutations and over 3,500 new lines of dialogue. That sounds a lot like the thousands of endings the studio teased before the game launched with rather less than that.

“Your epilogue is defined by you,” Larian said in the patch notes. “This is the culmination of every choice and consequence that you’ve made since the very start of your adventure, a gigantic tree of permutations that leads to an opportunity to reflect on that journey before you say goodbye. For the writers of Larian, this ‘final goodbye’ has resulted in some of the most complex writing in the game thus far, as it takes advantage of Baldur’s Gate 3’s reactivity across the entire adventure.”

BG3 Patch 5 adds Honour Mode, the harder difficulty option that GOG leaked with a new achievement, and Custom Mode, which lets you tinker with a range of settings to tailor the experience. Custom Mode lets you hide active rolls so you won’t know if you miss a perception or survival check, for example, or you can remove the skill check requirements for every roll and make it more like a regular D&D game.

Honour Mode gives you just one save file and won’t let you save-scum. Battles are tougher and bosses are smarter in Honour Mode. Your adventure ends if your party dies, though you can choose to continue on Tactician or another difficulty instead if you don’t want to start over completely.

Several late-game scenes that were previously bugged and didn’t play in most circumstances are fixed, and Larian even added Orin’s red outfit as a drop item that anyone can wear. BG3 Patch 5 streamlines inventory management as well, so you can handle everyone’s items from one screen, instead of having an individual interface for each party member.

There’s the usual, sweeping range of changes and fixes in Patch 5 as well, including more interactions for Jaheira, a better ending for Mol, and further fixes to bugs that cut out character dialogue and reactions.

You can check out the full notes on Larian’s website. The studio promised further fixes for BG3 romance scenes in future updates, though didn’t give specifics.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF