Baldur's Gate 3 - Pre-Patch Heads-Up

Larian will release patch 6 for Baldur's Gate 3 soon, which will make saved games incompatible as usual. They posted an update to show how to freeze the version for Steam users. The content of the patch will be revealed in details in the customary Panel From Hell stream.

Pre-Patch Announcement

Hello everyone! We hope you're doing well, and adventuring boldly.

Once again we find ourselves in a familiar situation. We're out of lockdown and eager to see you all again, but that doesn't mean we're slowing down at all. Patch 6 is almost here, and we're excited for you to get your hands on it! It's our biggest ever patch for Baldur's Gate 3. If you're attending EGX this week in London, you'll get an exclusive preview…featuring a new playable class. Who's ready to make some magic?

We also have something special in Patch 6 for those of you who watched Twitch Plays: A Most Noble Sacrifice. If you like the sound of meat hitting meat (stop giggling), then you'll love the latest addition to your arsenal - the equippable Salami. Yes, they can be dual wielded. But that's enough of the spoilers. There's a lot more in Patch 6, and we'll be exploring that really soon.

We're busy planning a Panel From Hell right around the corner that'll serve as a deep dive into the new content for Patch 6.

Anyhoo, the business of the day: with Patch 6 on the horizon, weighing in at approximately 60GB (so make sure you have plenty of space free!), we want to remind you that any saves made Patch 5 or prior will no longer be compatible when updated.

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More information.

How big is this game measured in GB right now ?

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
How big is this game measured in GB right now ?

About the same as the patch (EDIT: I see 73 GB on GOG, but a 65-GB download).

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Anyhoo, the business of the day: with Patch 6 on the horizon, weighing in at approximately 60GB (so make sure you have plenty of space free!), we want to remind you that any saves made Patch 5 or prior will no longer be compatible when updated.

Updating BG3 always takes a lot of disk space. Not sure how it works on Steam, but with Galaxy you can specify a download and working directory on a separate HD, if the game takes precious space on an SSD.

This pisses me off everytime a new patch hits: they can't simply patch the game files and update them, they have to effing redownload a whole new (updated)file. So if that file happens to be a big one(which most of the game files are), you're screwed. It's basically redownloading the game every time it patches.

Originally Posted by axellslade
This pisses me off everytime a new patch hits: they can't simply patch the game files and update them, they have to effing redownload a whole new (updated)file. So if that file happens to be a big one(which most of the game files are), you're screwed. It's basically redownloading the game every time it patches.

I felt the same but mostly when they were hotfixes.

A significant update must have a lot of differences, hard to create an efficient patch. Moreover, it would require more time to apply, and Larian was criticized for the long patching process at the beginning - but IIRC it was mostly because the process was duplicating the whole game then transferring everything back, which was painful for HD owners, and long enough for SSD owners.

Originally Posted by axellslade
This pisses me off everytime a new patch hits: they can't simply patch the game files and update them, they have to effing redownload

What game.
We are talking about alpha or beta product here.

Yes, that's why I don't do Early access …

I have a feeling this game will probably be over 100+GB when it's fully complete.

As for patches making you re-download the game I hated that in the past as it was due to how Steam updates the game files. It happens less nowadays but I still hate it.

Glad I skipped playing the Early Access version. Now here's the big question will be ready for a 2022 release? My personal opinion given it's development speed no.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I have a feeling this game will probably be over 100+GB when it's fully complete.

As for patches making you re-download the game I hated that in the past as it was due to how Steam updates the game files. It happens less nowadays but I still hate it.

Glad I skipped playing the Early Access version. Now here's the big question will be ready for a 2022 release? My personal opinion given it's development speed no.

I remember buying tropico 1 in store and it had almost a 1gb requirement. I thought they were mad…

Now we download 100gb over and over again every month.

Originally Posted by Pladio
I remember buying tropico 1 in store and it had almost a 1gb requirement. I thought they were mad…

Now we download 100gb over and over again every month.

It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US. If we go over were charged extra. If you want to get unlimited it cost $50-100 more.

We have some of the fastest speeds available but bottle-necked by provider greed. Its the reason why I roll my eyes when an all digital future is mentioned.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US. If we go over were charged extra. If you want to get unlimited it cost $50-100 more.

We have some of the fastest speeds available but bottle-necked by provider greed. Its the reason why I roll my eyes when an all digital future is mentioned.

This sounds awful. I'm surprised there isn't a provider looking to change the rules of the game and become the most popular one just by removing the cap, as it happened in Europe quite some time ago. I remember when I lived in Belgium there was this same thing, and I thought it was plain extortion. And that was before games were 100GB big, indeed.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US. If we go over were charged extra. If you want to get unlimited it cost $50-100 more.

I have a cap but I don't remember what it is as I never approach it, despite streaming stuff everyday and downloading games regularly. Basically I'd have to be downloading torrents of hundreds of films or something to even have to worry about it.

There's the cap, but when we were in lockdown, many of us were working home and sharing the bandwidth to the Internet too. Downloading the massive updates of BG3 was sometimes awkward.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Glad I skipped playing the Early Access version. Now here's the big question will be ready for a 2022 release? My personal opinion given it's development speed no.

That sounds like a candidate for a poll, or perhaps even a contest (except everybody will win)

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US. If we go over were charged extra. If you want to get unlimited it cost $50-100 more.

We have some of the fastest speeds available but bottle-necked by provider greed. Its the reason why I roll my eyes when an all digital future is mentioned.

I'm getting 350Mbps (Megabit/s) for £35 (~$50) per month with unlimited usage.
What's yours ?

I don't see what the problem is. Last time I checked it was 2021 and most of us should have real internet and real PCs to do real gaming on. /shrug

I guess I'm lucky. I've never heard of a cap if any of my ISPs I've used thru life. We're currently hard-wired to fiber at $65/mo for life (as long as we keep auto paying) and in the 2 years I've had there's been maybe one brief disruption of service that I've noticed. 60G from a decent provider like Steam would DL by the time I made some tea with every possible device in the house streaming video.

It really starts to piss me off as I have a capped internet provider as most do in the US

But what's the cap and how realistic that anybody except 20 teenagers on one account doing video 24/7 would ever hit it?

Wow, I of course have access to the internet, yet no idea if I've a cap or not, at least I've never encountered running out of internet time or anything. Then again, I tend to be off the interwebs when my computer is powered on more than I'm connected, to be honest. It just seems safer to me.

I didn't think bandwidth caps were still a thing.

If that's the same as here, many providers advertise "unlimited" data throughput, but when you look more closely to the contract, it's mostly always limited to some value, past which the bandwidth is dramatically reduced.

Originally Posted by Pladio
I remember buying tropico 1 in store and it had almost a 1gb requirement. I thought they were mad…

I had the EXACT SAME feeling when trying to install BG1 …

In the bright side, it's just an EA. The clever thing to do is to ignore it exists.