Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Community Update #27 Official Modding Support

Hey everyone,

We come bringing news of Patch 7!

Finally, we hear you say - but don’t get ready to throw yourself into our next patch just yet, we’ve got a lot of work to do to bring you our first iteration of modding tools, evil endings, plus a whole bunch of fixes, quality of life improvements, and more that we’ll go into detail about in a future Community Update!

Coming to you this September, the next major update for Baldur’s Gate 3 will also introduce an officially sanctioned toolkit for giving Lae’zel a mullet. I mean, sure, go for it. You only live once.

As we mentioned in our last Community Update, we want you to have the opportunity to test out Patch 7 and the Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit so you can share your feedback with us before it goes live!

Patch 7 testing is now being split into a two-phase process, which begins with working closely with a small team of mod authors from the community. This is our closed alpha stage, where they’ll be able to help us further develop the modding tools, and have a go at bringing their existing mods to life using our Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit.

The closed alpha is set to kick off today, June 3rd, and we’ll be inviting more mod authors to take part over time.

Come July, we’ll be opening registration for a further closed beta, capped at roughly 1,000 players, that anyone on PC can go ahead and sign up for - and we want you to test the mods created during the alpha!

With the intention of working through your feedback throughout the summer, it will give us time to polish off Patch 7 ready for release in September. In the meantime, we still have plenty coming your way, including some anniversary extravagance as we look back on the months since release. We’re also still pressing on with the development of an in-game photo mode, crossplay, and more fixes that will arrive later down the line!

Catch up on what’s coming in Patch 7 and view a teaser for the improved evil endings by reading our last Community Update here: https://larian.club/CU26

For now, we want to give you a little insight into what official modding tools mean for Baldur’s Gate 3, and have put together an FAQ that aims to answer some of your burning questions!

MODDING FAQ

Whether you are a seasoned modder excited to continue developing mods for Baldur’s Gate 3 or you are new to the scene and want to try your hand at bringing your ideas to life, our new modding pipeline aims to provide a convenient way for players and creators alike to access and manage mods across all platforms Baldur’s Gate 3 is released on, with improved compatibility, tools, and documentation.

First things first, what is a mod?

Whether you are turning fireballs pink, boosting the attack damage of a hand-wielded sausage, or bestowing all citizens of Faerûn with a personal handgun, modding lets you alter a game to change how it looks or behaves.

With the official Baldur's Gate 3 modding tools, you'll have what you need to add new weapons and armor, create new classes and subclasses, design new powerful spells, customise your game dice skins, and share your mods with a community of creators.

What does official support mean, as opposed to mods I’m using right now?

Updates to Baldur’s Gate 3 as well as conflicts between third-party mods can cause issues with game stability and prevent mods from working correctly. That’s where official support comes in.

We will never prevent modding outside of our own official pipeline, but implementing our own will improve compatibility and give us the opportunity to ensure they’ll work wherever you’re playing Baldur's Gate 3.

It’ll also ensure a smoother experience, at the cost of more script-focused modding, which can still be done outside of our pipeline. You’ll therefore have two choices for modding Baldur’s Gate 3, but we’ll only be able to officially support mods through mod.io.

Mod.io - what is it, and how does it work?

Mod.io allows us to bring modding support to all platforms, and provides the necessary infrastructure to allow you to download mods on both PC and Console, manage uploaded mods, host guides, and provide a level of content moderation to keep the community safe.

Will the support be rolled out in phases?

We are currently rolling out invites for the Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit on Steam to popular mod authors so they can explore the new modding environment, view the tools, and get familiar with the process of converting their mods and uploading them to the platform, or even try creating new ones.

At this early stage, participating mod authors will be able to provide us with direct feedback as we continue our internal development and testing. They will be using a live development environment, which means they’ll also get access to new features as they continue to be developed ahead of a full release.

Which platforms will be able to use and install mods?

Releasing first on PC, we expect to roll out the support to the wider community and various platforms shortly after - including for Mac players, as well as PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

Which platforms will be able to use the modding tools to create new mods?

Limitations in place on some platforms mean that while you will be able to browse, install, and use player-created mods, the official modding tools themselves will not be available to those playing on console.

PC players will have access to the Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit to create their own mods, and an internal curation process will determine which of these mods become available for those on console.

How are mods curated for PC and console?

On PC, general stability and Terms of Service checks will be carried out before a mod becomes available in the game’s browser. On console, an additional curation process confirms which of these PC mods become available for cross-platform support. While not all PC mods will become available for console, we’ll be sure to publish guidelines to help you understand what kind of content will pass our necessary checks - without blocking any unsupported creative mods on PC - so that we can continue supporting the modding community both inside and outside our official pipeline.

What mods won’t be available through mod.io?

Baldur’s Gate 3, as a Dungeons & Dragons game licensed by our partners, has certain guidelines in place to ensure the integrity of the game’s universe.

That said, we want to support as much creative freedom as possible.

Our goal with mod.io and our partners is to strike a balance that allows for extensive modding while keeping the guidelines in mind, and to open the door for mods to reach as many players as possible while ensuring they work seamlessly across different platforms. While some NSFW mods and certain script-heavy modifications may not be supported through the official pipeline, modding outside of our pipeline will still be an option.

For cross-platform support, direct level editing and changes to core game elements (like story, cinematics, dialogues, quests, and local gameplay adjustments) can’t be facilitated due to technical constraints and platform-specific guidelines.

We’ll be working with our partners to explore ways to expand modding possibilities within these constraints and provide clear guidelines to help everyone understand what is possible.

I want to do things your modding pipeline doesn’t support. How will mod.io handle unsupported mods?

Changes that won’t be officially supported within our pipeline, like scripting changes or NSFW mods that wouldn't pass the moderation process due to platform-specific restrictions, may still be packed locally with mod.io’s toolset and uploaded to other mod distribution platforms!

This means that those mods can still be downloaded manually, and the game’s browser will still
recognise them and allow you to manage them in the mod load order of the game. However,
because they would be local and alter unsupported systems, there will not be embedded
support for checking for updates and syncing to others in a multiplayer session. Additionally, we will not be able to provide full technical support in case of crashes.

We understand and appreciate the hard work and dedication of the modding community, and have no plans to limit modding to our official pipeline. We are committed to supporting the modding community as comprehensively as we can, and can’t wait to see what ideas you bring to life!

Will Larian Studios provide any guidance for unsupported mods?

We are currently seeing how far we can offer guidance for unsupported mods, which - at present - includes discussing whether we create official scripting API documentation, and whether we introduce internal testing for the Script Extender and other tools to support compatibility between patches where possible. However, while we can guide, we cannot offer support for mods outside of our pipeline.

Is there a long-term support plan for providing official modding support?

Outside of critical fixing post-release, we do not currently have the technical capacity to provide long-term support while also lending our focus to future projects.

What will the Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit consist of?

Beyond game code architecture for managing mods, we will release a subset of our internal development tools as part of the Baldur’s Gate 3 Toolkit. This will let you:

• Access the editor to create your own mods.
• Upload mods directly to mod.io servers.
• Load levels read-only to look at all the local entities, as well as the setup, and test your mods in-game while creating them.
• Get access to our internal editors for supported asset types such as textures and visual models, allowing you to override them directly in your mod through the developer interface.
• Publish your mod via the editor where it will be moderated and made visible in the in-game browser, or pack your mod locally to upload to a third-party site.
• Mod UIs through file editing. We will provide documentation that will explain how our internals are set up to solve mod loading/compatibility issues.
• Within Baldur’s Gate 3 itself, you’ll be able to:
  • Download and manage your mods directly.
  • Manage multiplayer and save game files through a verification UI.

What’s included as part of mod.io?

Mod.io provides moderation tools that allow us to curate mods for console, as well as offers a hosting and distribution solution for your mods, which you will be able to access through mod.io, or through our website. You’ll also be able to subscribe or unsubscribe from mods in-game with our mod browser.

You’ll need a mod.io account to manage and create your mods, where you’ll be able to upload, tag them, as well as add screenshots, descriptions, and other stuff.

If you’d like to view the full FAQ, please head over to our Discord at: https://discord.gg/larianstudios

Or on the Larian Forums in this thread: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=943531&#Post943531

This is all very exciting stuff, and we’re looking forward to working with mod authors, and can’t wait to see what you create!

Curious to ask; does mod support via mod.io mean that Steam Workshop support isn't being added or is it possible that Workshop support could come later down the road? I'm playing BG3 exclusively via Nvidia's cloud streaming service GeForce Now due to me not having a PC to play on and GFN only allows mods via Steam Workshop.

The levels part confusing me. Does this mean an increased level cap won't be available for console as well as spells above 6th tier? Also can us on console get mods to make us immortal and overpowered as in 1st tier spells doing so much damage we're basically 1 shoting enemies.

That's cool news! Sounds fun! I think for me, the main issue I always seem to have with mods for RPGs is just the challenge of finding all the things that will play well together. So having it somehow curated in a way where I'm beset not by indecisions or paralyzed and turned to stone by the basilisk's gaze of a massive load list sounds ideal. Trying to parse the way people randomly name stuff can also make the search for that one whatever mod feel daunting at times hehe. I'll look forward to things like a BG3 version of Sword Coast Stratagems, or G3, the sorts of things that increase the options for the Custom character especially. I think it will be interesting to see if someone can pull off a Durlag's style tower out of this one, perhaps with the Basilisks too!?

I took levels to mean like area levels rather than player character levels in that part mentioned above. I gotta imagine attempting to raise the lvl cap to 13 or to do something similar via multi-class or feat selection or things at the high end like that, which might stretch the xp progression, would be pretty well received. Mods for other things that have been kicked around, such as the 6 person party or NPC/Hireling recruitment stuff for that concept that could scale with XP or difficulty, I'd check that one out for sure. If someone manages to do Baldur's Gate Nights I could really get into that. I'll keep my eye out for anything that might off the day night cycle vibe or perhaps in world camps. Hopefully this one will have legs to keep it running! Thanks for the heads up!

So like 2025 for PS5.. great.

So ...
This is final line i asume?
Something like: "You want something else? Do it yourself, here are tools." right?
Nice. :3

Question tho ... will we be able to mod stat rolling with those tools?

Thank you for the update, looking forward to it

I mostly play on Linux, will this official mod support pipeline work with Linux?

Seconding this: that would be great!
(I only play on Linux)

I hope there is a way to open the levels with write privileges as well and allow editing or creating new levels.

Even if this cannot be released to mod.io because of cross-play compatibility, it would be good to have a fully functioning level editor.

Under modding support, I understand being able to create new lands, quests, characters, items and equipment, events, animations and cut scenes etc. and integrate it into the game.

If there are limits, because of the official mod.io pipeline, moderation and cross-play support, fine. But it should be easy to deactivate them.

It sounded like there are legal issues (Hasbro controls the setting), so Larian may not be allowed to provide a full level-and-story editor that could be used to create whole new campaigns. Or a GM mode, so bg3 would become a virtual tabletop system.

But validation of levels is already a huge step. It would simplify tool development a lot.

Hey! The term "levels" in the line "direct level editing" references level as physical areas in the game and not character levels.

The team is continuing to fix bugs and working in the development of an in-game photo mode and crossplay

I will check your last question with the team and see if we can get it added to the FAQ! Same with the questions about Linux

Awesome thank you so much!

it would be nice to have crossplay working again but a way to save character settings is what i really want
ie, halforc face 1, eyes 3, this hair and that scare so when our hero dies we can quicky restart them

Thanks ^_^

Seconding this, a feature to import and export characters would save so much hassle, especially in Honour Mode when I'd want to start a new run but not make a whole new character, so I have to remake the old one from scratch each time. This would also allow for fiddling in the character maker without needing to start a save immediately. It would make for a great quality of life feature.

On the topic of character creation, I'd also appreciate an option to remove the face-body-link so I could mix and match masculine bodytypes with feminine faces and vice versa. The limited amount of faces on my preferred bodytype gets pretty old and making non-binary characters is even more limited unless this mix-and-matching of features is made possible. Iirc this was done with hairstyles, and it would really enrich character creation to have more freedom and options with faces and bodytypes too.

Thank you!

Hmmm... If this is the sort of license stuff Larian has to deal with D&D, then I understand even more their desire to switch to their own IP again.

However, IIRC with DOS and/or DOS2 the editor was also in a read-only mode for the main campaign levels, which I guess could be worked around somewhat. But I don't remember seeing many (or any) custom single-player quest mods for it that extend the main campaign.

I don't know enough if the reason for that is the available tooling, limits enforced by Larian or the engine, or not enough interest by the community.

I really hope that modding for Larian games takes of like it did with Elder Scrolls/Fallout games, but currently I am a bit skeptical.


I am still hopeful. But with these limits, we have to see what will happen. Creating worlds, quests, dialog, cutscences and animations (which was done already AFAIK) is not a simple task to reverse engineer.

What, apart from mod.io integration, better handling of mod conflicts and game updates and cross-play support (all of which are great, BTW, but don't provide new modding capabilities), does the official modding tool allows us to do, which is currently not possible with the available tools on PC?

I am completely unfamiliar with mods and only use mods via the Steam Workshop.

Will it be as easy to download mods for BG3 as it is with the Steam Workshop or is there much more to consider?