Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 17 Stops Gale from Suddenly Leaving Your Party

Larian Studios released Hotfix 17 for Baldur’s Gate 3, and it fixes an issue with Gale. However, this is primarily a small update designed to address a few issues around saves and a couple of story adjustments.

The biggest addition to Hotfix 17 is a change to the behavior for Gale as part of his Baldur’s Gate 3 storyline. Due to a bug, players found him leaving the party instantly if they fail to offer him any magical items, even temporarily. This has been adjusted so that he will only do this if you make it clear you never intend to give him magical items to snack on. He will no longer leave if you simply don’t have anything on hand in that exact moment.

Hotfix 17 also fixes a few issues related to Baldur’s Gate 3 save files. These include reducing the size of save files that were registering summons that no longer exist in the game world. Save files overall are also getting increased compression, reducing their sizes. This also aims to fix errors that occurred due to large save sizes. This includes an error specific to the PS5 version where large file sizes would prevent players from being able to save again.

While Hotfix 17 is a much smaller update than the previous patch for Baldur’s Gate 3, there are still a small selection of other bug fixes too. An issue involving mods to character resources has been addressed. In addition, some camera glitches have been fixed, where the camera would zoom in on characters jumping or casting projectile spells.

Here are the full patch notes from Steam:

PERFORMANCE AND CODE

• Fixed black and colourful visual artefacts sometimes appearing for 1 frame on PS5 when switching scenes or opening and closing UI windows.
• Increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files (such as Error 544)
• Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don’t exist in the game anymore.
• Guarded against crashes caused when certain character resources (Actions, Bonus Actions, Superiority Dice, etc.) were added and later removed by a mod or cheat engine.

GAMEPLAY AND COMBAT

• In Honour Mode, the aura of Cazador’s  now properly dissipates after he’s . Sorry!
• Fixed the camera sometimes zooming in while jumping or casting projectile spells.
• Fixed the ability to walk through open doors when you click beyond them from far away.
• Fixed Thieves’ Tools in the camp chest or inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp not being accessible when lockpicking.

UI

• Safeguard Shield’s Saving Throw modifier is now correctly reflected on the Character Sheet.

FLOW AND SCRIPTING

• Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don’t offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you’re abundantly clear that you don’t plan on ever doing so.
• Fixed characters getting stuck ‘in a story event’, preventing you from controlling them, after getting killed in the fight with Grym.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.