Baldur’s Gate III adds native game mods on PC

Baldur’s Gate III was an absolute smash hit last year, and it remains one of the most popular PC games out there. In fact, as I write this story in the middle of a work day, it has over 70,000 concurrent players on Steam.

The latest major patch for the turn-based RPG will get a lot of those players excited because it’s bringing native support for game mods, available from right within the game.

Modding isn’t anything new for Baldur’s Gate III. Players were messin’ with the set dressin’ even before the official release, back during the game’s multi-year-long early access period. But this new toolset will make it easy for PC players to download and install mods without any external tools (e.g., the popular-but-intimidating Nexus Mod Manager).

Developer Larian Studios is aware of the extensive collection of mods that already exists and has made sure that popular tools like Script Extender work on the new native system. Most of them should automatically appear in the Mod Manager when you update the game.

Players can browse and install some of the most popular game additions and adjustments from within the game itself, with modifications updated automatically as creators release them. It’s similar to the familiar Steam Workshop system that’s become a de facto standard for games like Skyrim, though Larian has made and implemented its own setup that isn’t reliant on the Steam backend.

That goes for its official Baldur’s Gate III Toolkit, too. Modders can download Larian’s pre-packaged set of tools directly from Steam or as a standalone package, but Steam isn’t required to implement any of it. The toolkit allows modders to create and publish new spells, classes, subclasses, weapons, other gear, and even skin the in-game dice set for a bit more flair to your rolls.

Though Baldur’s Gate III uses the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop system for gameplay and takes place in its Forgotten Realms setting, D&D is just too massive to include all of its decades-long content in a single game — so the next best thing is to include them as extended levels, subclasses, and legendary weapons via mods.

Along with, well, you know. Apropos of nothing, the Mod Manager has a search function toggle that lets you show or hide explicit content.

Other additions to Baldur’s Gate III include new endings and animations for more evil playthroughs, and more challenging wrinkles for some boss fights in the Honour Mode difficulty setting. It’s a “big ‘un,” say the developers.

Though Baldur’s Gate III is feature-complete and pretty much finished from a functionality standpoint, Larian says it’s still working on more goodies like a photo mode and multi-platform crossplay.