Larian Studios set a roadmap for future Baldur’s Gate 3 patches, but this may have changed due to the recent difficulties with Hotfix #4. (Images: Larian Studios and Wizards of the Coast)

Baldur's Gate 3 hit a snag with their Hotfix 4, requiring it to be rolled back and then redeployed. In light of this, Larian Studios is setting the roadmap for future game fixes and updates.

The most recent entry of the iconic Baldur's Gate computer roleplaying game (CRPG series) has been hitting new records virtually every week since its launch. But while Larian Studios has undoubtedly scored a homerun with Baldur's Gate 3, it is far from being perfect. Multiple hotfixes have been necessary to address the bugs and glitches, ranging from the minor graphical issues to the serious game-breaking crashes and save state corruption.

While Larian Studios has been on top of the technical problems for the most part, the delays and further issues after most recent hotfix has necessitated some changes for future Baldur's Gate fixes.

Larian Studios chief Swen Vincke announced how they will be setting the roadmap for future Baldur's Gate 3 updates, sharing it on his official X (formerly Twitter) account.

We're all very enthused by your feedback. It's very rewarding. Our focus now is fixing any issues you report, but we are listening to suggestions. Current roadmap: a) Hotfix 4, b) Patch 1 (+1000 fixes and tweaks), c) Patch 2. The latter will already incorporate some requests.

We're all very enthused by your feedback. It's very rewarding. Our focus now is fixing any issues you report, but we are listening to suggestions. Current roadmap: a) Hotfix 4, b) Patch 1 (+1000 fixes and tweaks), c) Patch 2. The latter will already incorporate some requests.

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) August 15, 2023

Not long after, Hotfix #4 was released, intended to resolve more bugs and glitches that Baldur's Gate 3 players were experiencing. Some of the more prominent issues Hotfix #4 was intended to clear up were player being stuck in the middle of a Long Rest due to a bug that prevented Companions from waking up, characters disappearing when disconnecting and then reconnecting in split-screen, and a script issue that prevented BG3 players from loading saved games.

Unfortunately, the fourth hotfix for Baldur's Gate 3 proved to be troublesome. A rare compiler issue led to the hotfix being rolled back and then redeployed only after the Larian Studios fully resolved the technical problem. But the timing was unfortunate, leaving many BG3 players frustrated, as the rollback to Hotfix 3 prevented any games saved under Hotfix 4 from being loaded.

Due to a build error causing new crashes, we’ve rolled back Hotfix 4 for the time being. We'll re-release it as soon as we’ve fixed the cause.

If you’ve saved since updating, you won’t be able to load those saves until we’ve re-published Hotfix 4. Sorry about the inconvenience.

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) August 16, 2023

Larian Studios issued an explanation and apology to the Baldur's Gate 3 player base for the prolonged technical issue:

Hotfix 4 went through a rigorous QA pipeline and was confirmed as a candidate for release yesterday. However, we triggered a rebuild of the version relatively last minute to change the version number. The version that was cooked was unfortunately plagued by compiler corruption, which was causing certain exceptions that normally wouldn't cause crashes to - you guessed it - cause crashes.

Since compiler issues like that are extremely rare, we weren't prepared for it. We should've been. We messed up.

It didn't help that it happened at the worst possible time of day but luckily we have studios in multiple countries. Overnight (for Europe), our teams in Canada and then Malaysia worked to diagnose what went wrong, so that work could begin on redeploying a fixed version of the hotfix.

Moreover, the Baldur's Gate 3 team resolved to make changes with how hotfixes are examined, tested, and released:

To avoid this from happening in the future, we'll make sure that any change made to future version candidates - no matter how small, or innocuous - will always go through our full & comprehensive QA pipeline, which include a global in-house QA team, automated testing, unit tests, and save-game compatibility testing.

This likely means that hotfixes for bugs and glitches reported by players will not be as fast as they have been in the first 2 weeks since Baldur's Gate 3's launch. But on the plus side, it does give ample time for Larian Studios to ensure the hotfixes that address technical issues, but do not cause other problems for players as a consequence. And by extension, this may also affect the previously announced roadmap for future Baldur's Gate 3 patches and updates.

How do you feel about Larian Studios choosing to dedicate more time on testing and releasing hotfixes? Did the recent rollback and prolonged redeployment sour your enjoyment and satisfaction for Baldur's Gate 3?

Developed and published by Larian Studios in partnership with Wizards of the Coast, Baldur's Gate 3 is a certified hit CRPG. Adapting the Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules, BG3 is a fantasy adventure that takes place in the legendary Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Choose from a set of Origin characters or create and customize your own, assemble a party, and take an epic journey in solo or multiplayer gameplay.

Baldur's Gate 3 on the Windows PC is available now through GOG and Steam. A Sony Playstation 5 port is targeted for release on September 6, with a TBD release date for the in-development macOS and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S platforms.