It has officially been one week since Baldur’s Gate 3 released into early access on PC and Stadia. On launch day, developer Larian Studios faced various hurdles, including a basement flood and a blackout. However, this didn’t stop launch day from being a success overall. Larian has since gathered quite a bit of player feedback during the game’s first week in early access, enough to release Baldur’s Gate 3’s first major patch update.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s first major patch update, titled Patch 1 – Launch, is available now. You can read the full patch notes over on Steam on the game’s most recent community update. The patch update includes stability improvements and a slew of bug fixes to address crashes and other issues.
We've just released Patch #1 for Baldur's Gate 3! Along with this patch, we take an initial deep dive into our Early Access journey so far on the topic of death. Witness: THE MAP OF DEATH! Check out the update! https://t.co/zt2OxzVb8b
— Larian – Chonky Patch 4 NOW LIVE! (@larianstudios) October 13, 2020
Along with the patch, Larian has also provided insight into some interesting gameplay statistics based on data and feedback gathered during the game’s first week in early access. For this update, Larian has been focusing primarily on death–that is, player deaths and the context surrounding them.
In today’s community update, Larian shared a limited heatmap (aptly named the “Map of Death”) that shows where players have been dying the most. The developers use this information to determine where to make adjustments in the game. For example, Larian is prepared to tweak and adjust combat parameters throughout early access based on the hottest regions of the Map of Death.
“It might not look like much, but this shows us where to investigate,” said Larian in today’s community update. “We can correlate this with direct player feedback, balancing feedback, and even bug reports to find out why people are dying where they’re dying, and also is it normal that people are dying there? It’s just one example of how people are helping simply by playing the game.”
Larian promises to continue sharing more gameplay data throughout early access. If you want to provide gameplay feedback during its time in early access, you can purchase Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC and Stadia for $59.99.