Baldur's Gate 3 mod which erases the game's queer characters gets banned

A big part of Baldur's Gate 3's charm lies in its characters, who are as strikingly emotive as they are simply interesting to listen to. Whether it's the party members you spend every night at camp with or the oddballs you stumble across in town. So, months after release and as we cap off the year, fans are looking back at their favourite dialogue from all corners of the game.

Baldur's Gate 3 has you level up to become more powerful, which is pretty standard when it comes to video games these days. Leveling up gets you more health points and stat bonuses, as well as access to powerful spells you need to defeat tougher enemies. Not leveling up puts you at a massive disadvantage later in the game, but it's one that YouTuber Fracture was happy to burden.

If you’ve been holding out hope that Baldur’s Gate 3 might find its way onto PC Game Pass in the future, I’ve got some bad news for you: it’s very unlikely to happen.

Game developers have a problem with this year’s Game Awards.

As a storytelling medium, games are strange. In my day job, I tell students that the medium-specific dimension of games is that they respond to our choices in real time: you press a button, Mario jumps. You choose a line of dialogue, and a scene can suddenly turn violent or comedic. This means that games, especially narrative-focused ones, are simultaneously a way for us to tell a story and a way for us to be told a story. Clara Fernández-Vara and Matthew Weise, in talking about world-building, call the world of a game a “story engine”: by creating a fleshed-out and engaging world, the designer builds story potential, which the player then “actualizes” through their play.

The most recent patch for adds two new gameplay settings, one of which is the ultra-difficult Honour Mode. It's one of two new modes added in Patch 5 of , in addition to the highly flexible Custom Mode. In many ways, it's similar to the hardest default difficulty setting in , Tactician Mode, but is far from a simple expansion thereof. In fact, it's so much harder, it includes a lengthy pop-up window warning about all the ways it can screw players over. It's less than ideal for a first playthrough, but could be interesting for a repeat or challenge run.

If you were impressed by how good the first GTA 6 trailer looked, you were far from alone: even developers who previously worked at Rockstar were blown away by the level of detail shown.

Larian says half of one percent of Baldur's Gate 3 players have managed to finish the game without recruiting a single companion, and accounting for those possibilities is part of what made designing the game and writing its dialogue so challenging.

If you missed The Game Awards 2023 livestream, as it was on overnight here in the UK, and are looking for a one-stop shop on what the big celebrity cameos and new game reveals were during the three-hour-plus event, we’ve got you covered.

Larian Studios and Remedy led The Game Awards last night, with Baldur's Gate 3 winning six awards including Game of the Year, and Alan Wake 2 taking home three of the eight it was nominated for.

An avalanche of new game announcements hit at The Game Awards 2023, ranging from the return of classic franchises to the reveals of all-new worlds. For those of you looking for a rundown of everything announced, we’ve got you covered.

Baldur's Gate 3 nabbed The Game Awards' coveted Game of the Year title, and Larian Studios founder and CEO Swen Vincke graciously accepted it wearing half a suit of shining armor.