Summary
- Baldur’s Gate 3 modder SquallyDaBeanz is adding an entirely new region between Acts 2 and 3.
- They’re planning to flesh out the story of how Tav and the party reached the city itself, letting us play through the trek rather than cutting to the city immediately after the Shadow-Cursed Lands.
- The Act Two Expansion is aiming to launch in “late 2025”, but don’t expect much in the way of NPCs or cutscenes.
There’s a small stretch of the story unaccounted for in Baldur’s Gate 3. At the end of Act 2, on the heels of the Absolute’s army, we march to the city at long last, but the only glimpse we get of this journey is a quiet stop at camp, overlooking the metropolis from a distance.
SquallyDaBeanz, the modder behind the Forsaken custom campaign, is amending that after two years. They just announced a brand-new expansion (reported by VG247), which will add a new region to the game set between Acts 2 and 3, fleshing out how Tav and their party went from the Shadow-Cursed Lands to Baldur’s Gate, making that final step a little less sudden.
“It features new areas, dungeons, encounters, items, secrets, puzzles, lore, and more,” they said. “The main goal of the project is to give players a whole new region to experience that is similar in scope to the Act 1 Wilderness. This mod focuses mainly on exploration and combat to capture a similar sandbox feel, while getting to enjoy all the fun of mid-to-high level characters, spells, and items!”
The Act Two Expansion Aims To Launch Later This Year
What’s more, you might not have to wait long to try this custom campaign out for yourself. SquallyDaBeanz aims to have version 1.0 ready for “late 2025”, and you can see the impressive progress made so far in the trailer above.
However, it’s worth noting that, since this is fan-made, the expansion won’t have fleshed out new interactions with party members or huge new story beats. Most of the narrative will be “told primarily through notes and the environment”, with NPCs and cutscenes being a “very low priority”.
They also aren’t too worried about messing with the pacing of the gaming, or the balancing, as they argued that most players “end up hitting max level” for most of Act 3, anyway.
As for what the story will actually entail, they explained that “With the Army of the Absolute on the march, Tav and the gang must find a way to cross the Chionthar River before taking part in an epic battle against the Absolute’s army at Rivington”. So, a trek through the wilderness and a skirmish with the enemy before arriving at the pearly (read: slightly dingy) gates of the city.
Simple enough, but a new region fleshing out the end of the game will add oodles of replay value for those who have sunk hundreds of hours into Larian’s award-winning RPG epic by now.
- Released
-
August 3, 2023
- ESRB
-
M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence