Community Update #27 Official Modding Support

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

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

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!