Larian teases 'something so small before something so big' as Baldur's Gate 3 gets its 28th hotfix

You are all criminals. This is what I've learned in over a year of writing up Baldur's Gate 3 patch notes. Faerûn's humble merchant class doesn't stand a chance against a few million dedicated players. In March, Larian had to clamp down on players getting free money from the game's salesfolk by sticking their items in containers. Now? The studio has to stop you from exploiting your most solemn of solemn oaths to make a quick buck.

BG3's hotfix 28 is live now, containing all sorts of little tweaks and adjustments in the wake of Larian's humdinger seventh patch. Most of them pertain to modding, fixing minor issues with the game's new mod manager and the like, but the bugfix that caught my eye was this one: "You can no longer add items to your wares even if they cannot become wares (e.g. pact weapons) by selecting them along with another item that can become a ware. This prevents a trade exploit where you could sell your wares and the bound items would not leave your inventory."

As if heaving a sigh, Larian even appended that note with "Any more of these up your sleeves?" I suspect the answer is yes. The denigration of D&D's petit-bourgeoisie will continue until the end of time.

Outside of that, like I said, there's a load of modding fixes. Players with a gajillion mods installed can now expect better load times, issues with mod dependencies not loading in the right order have been fixed, and a bug that stopped gamepad users from opening the mod manager on PC is resolved. Also—in non-modding patch news—Wyll will no longer give you negative greetings even if he likes you. We stan a hot-and-cold king.

All good stuff, I'm sure you'll agree, but Larian is once again teasing bigger plans ahead. Over on X, "The Everything App," Larian publishing director Michael Douse made the cryptic comment that the studio was releasing "Something so small before something so big," with hotfix 28.

Most likely, that's a reference to the plans the devs chatted about in September: Crossplay, a photo mode, and mysterious things the studio doesn't want to chat about are on the way, apparently, which means patch 7 isn't actually the final update so far as the studio's concerned. I guess that means I'm postponing my second playthrough until that comes out, but you know what? Fine. I'm happy to let Larian's chefs cook.

Here are hotfix 28's patch notes in full:

Modding

• On PS5, the 'Continue' button will now work the same as the 'Load Game' screen in that it won't allow you to start a game if there are any mod issues.
• On console, when loading a savegame that has unresolved mod issues, the Mod Verification Window will no longer keep asking you to re-download or uninstall mods when the action has already been taken.

Mod Manager

• Resolved an issue with mod dependencies not being loaded in the correct order after enabling/disabling some mods.
• Fixed the animated downloading bar not appearing in the Mod Verification Window after you click 'Download'.
• Fixed the horizontal scrollbar on the Mod Details page not being vertically centred between the arrows that flank it.
• Fixed a bug preventing you from opening the Mod Manager on PC when using a controller.
• Fixed the button prompts in the Mod Details page not updating correctly when using a controller.
• Fixed the filter tags in the Mod Manager not appearing in localised languages and made sure that the English string is shown as a backup in case there's an issue with fetching the translation.
• The mod browser scrollbar now resets to the top when you navigate to a previous or next page.
• On PS5, the Mod Manager now correctly reports the amount of remaining memory after uninstalling a mod.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when changing pages in the Mod Manager.
• Fixed clients on a multiplayer game getting caught in an enable–disable loop in the Mod Verification Window when trying to disable a mod that the host doesn't have.
• Updated the 'Explicit Content' filter's name to 'Mature Content'.
• Updated the name of the Mod Issues window to 'Mod Verification Window' to more accurately reflect what the window is for, and updated its description.

Gameplay

• Improved loading times for players with many mods installed.
• You can no longer add items to your wares even if they cannot become wares (e.g. pact weapons) by selecting them along with another item that can become a ware. This prevents a trade exploit where you could sell your wares and the bound items would not leave your inventory. Any more of these up your sleeves?
• Fixed Honour Mode features, like Legendary Actions, carrying over to non-Honour-Mode games if you'd previously loaded an Honour Mode save.
• On PS5, fixed the DualSense lightbar updating colours every single frame of the game when a new user logs in with a new controller.
• Resolved an issue with Wyll opting for negative greeting nodes even when he does like you.

Crashes and Blockers

• Fixed the character models becoming offset in the Trade UI when switching between trade and barter when using a controller.
• Fixed a crash when trying to load into a playthrough rather than a particular savegame within that playthrough.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a savegame.
• On PS5, fixed a potential crash when going full disco on the DualSense lightbar.