Hotfix 17 has arrived for Baldur’s Gate 3 and the good news is that it contains a fix designed to stop everyone’s favourite member of the shadow wizard money gang – Gale – from deserting you forever if you’re unable to offer him a magical item every time he asks.
Yup, following a hotfix that addressed the item issue which was causing some players to end up with completely softlocked honour mode runs and looked to cause some unintended issues of its own with certain mods, Larian’s put Gale in its crosshairs. To be fair, the posh bastard probably needed taking down a peg.
As documented in the patch notes for Hotfix 17, following its installation: “Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don’t offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you’re abundantly clear that you don’t plan on ever doing so.” Praise Mistra, accidentally being ditched by the magic man is no more!
Aside from that, you should find the boss battle against Cazador a little bit easier if you’re an honour mode player, thanks to a fix that ensures the vampire’s potent mist form “properly dissipates after he’s no longer in Mist Form”. Another key tweak has been applied to help negate issues involving the game’s camera occasionally zooming in – in what I imagine is quite MLG fashion – when you jump or cast projectile spells.
While Xbox players are still waiting for the firmware update that should permanently rectify BG3’s save issues on the platform to roll out globally (you should hopefully be able to update your console manually from today, January 16), this hotfix does also include couple of fixes aimed at stopping your save game files from getting so big they’re susceptible to issues.
Also, if you’re playing on Mac, Larian says you’ll be getting hotfixes 16 and 17 for BG3 as one big update aimed especially at that platform soon.
In other recent Baldur’s Gate 3-related news, Xbox has put out some advice to help you ensure you don’t end up getting banned for recording some of the game’s steamier scenes on the platform.