Baldur's Gate 3's Honour Mode is a whole new RPG, and even Tactician veterans are struggling

Although Honour Mode in offers a unique challenge, the heightened difficulty also comes along with a single save slot, which can put much more focus on one of the game's biggest shortcomings. Added in the game's fifth major patch, Honour Mode is a difficulty setting that goes beyond even the previous hardest mode, Tactician, buffing enemy stats, changing their tactics, and giving bosses unique Legendary Actions to make them even more challenging. Along with the added in-game difficulty, though, Honour Mode also comes with the caveat of only allowing a single save, effectively eliminating save-scumming from the equation.

Valheim is previewing a little of what we will see in the Ashlands, along with a new format video about the creative process behind creating a new biome, featuring work they’ve been doing on Ashlands.

It's been three weeks since Baldur's Gate 3 added Honour Mode, a new difficulty more punishing than Tactician. Tougher bosses, smarter AI, and most importantly, one save file. Mess up a roll? Face the consequences. Die? Start over. It's gruelling, but pushing through earns you an achievement and some swanky golden dice.

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.

Spells in offer potent buffs vital for survival in the new Honour Mode. This latest difficulty adds numerous challenges for players, including one save file and permadeath if all characters die. Luckily, there are multiple ways to make Honour Mode slightly easier with supportive spells. These can help mitigate the increased damage bosses deal with their new legendary actions.

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.

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.

Baldur’s Gate 3 will be released on Xbox Series X tonight, Larian Studios announced Thursday at The Game Awards.

Alongside a new epilogue and other features added by the fifth major update for , the game has also introduced a new hardest difficulty, Honour Mode, which adds a level of challenge that significantly exceeds any preexisting way of playing the game. However, aside from just increasing in-game difficulty, Honour Mode also introduces an extremely limiting, automatically updating single save slot for the entire playthrough, meaning that player decisions, bad rolls, and other potential mishaps can't be walked back once they happen.

Baldur's Gate 3 has had a pretty active speedrun community, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar enough with its more immersive-sim elements. There's the vaunted sex% speedrun, the any% speedrun which focuses on making Gale blow up as quickly as possible, and the «any% all acts» speedrun. Spoilers ahead, of course.

Baldur's Gate 3's massive Update 5 rolled out last week, bringing a swathe of changes and fixes, new features like Honour Mode, an all-new epilogue, and even making Minthara easier to recruit. The list of tweaks is extensive and detailed, but developer Larian Studios left at least one big swinging surprise for players to discover in their own time.

Update 2: Here we are then, the patch notes for Baldur's Gate 3 Update 5. Fair warning: they're bloody massive. Update 5 is available to download now on PS5, and you can read broader summaries of the patch in our original article and first update, found below the patch notes.