Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 8 stress test is now live for real
After an awkward false start that saw it rolled out prematurely on PlayStation 5 consoles (and then quickly rolled back), the Baldur's Gate 3 patch 8 stress test is now officially live on all platforms.
Announced in December 2024, the new patch is a real whopper. Highlights include the addition of a photo mode, crossplay, split-screen co-op play on Xbox Series X consoles, and the big one, 12 new subclasses that collectively represent "a powergamer's paradise," as PC Gamer's resident Baldur's Gate 3 maestro Harvey Randall put it. The patch unintentionally dropped yesterday for the PS5, which left poor Harvey in a bit of a state, but it also gave him a chance to dive into some build theorycrafting, providing a bit of a head start on today's official launch. (He's very excited about blade cantrips.)
Anyone who's registered to take part in the Patch 8 stress test should receive an email from Larian with an access code and instructions on how to access the test, while Xbox players will have to sign up through the Xbox Insiders program. If you're in the test and your crossplay pals are not, you can link your game account with your Larian account at larian.com and request extra keys for Steam and PC to share with your friends.
Larian recommends that console players serve as the host for PC-console crossplay, and warns that if you're hosting a crossplay lobby on PC you'll need to ensure you have fewer than 100 mods installed, and that all installed mods are also available for console and Mac—otherwise, console and Mac players won't be able to join your session.
Patch 8 is still a work in progress, and thus there are some known issues. Larian says it hopes most support mods will «remain mostly unscathed» with the patch, but there's always a risk of things going sideways: One of the purposes of the stress test, the studio says, is to help developers «understand how your mods interact with the latest patch and identify any issues ahead of release.»
The ImpUI mod, for one, may
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