Baldur's Gate 3 level editor is cracked open by modders, bringing homebrew campaigns one step closer
Read and write
Hack the planet, wizard fans. A modder has cracked open some previously disabled abilities in the official modding toolkit for Baldur's Gate 3, making it possible for folks to create their own levels or alter the game's existing environments. The toolkit (which was only made available last week) previously wouldn't let you do any of that, due to "technical constraints and platform-specific guidelines," according to developers Larian. But modders neither care nor sleep. It took them just two days to worm their way into the devkit's innards and make the impossible possible.
To give you some context, last week the developers released a hefty patch that added a bunch of new endings to the fantasy RPG. But included in that patch was official mod support and the modding toolkit. It was made available to help the usual sickos continue working on new hairstyles, customised weapons, and, uh, "other" material. The kit is essentially a watered-down version of what developers Larian would use in the studio, with some of the more powerful features disabled. You could view the game's levels in "read-only" mode, for instance, but you couldn't alter those environments, nor make your own levels. Until enterprising modder "Siegre" stuck a lockpick into the devkit and made everything possible, that is.
BG3 Toolkit Unlocked is available on Nexus Mods (at the time of writing, at least) and has a simple description: "This mod unlocks all the disabled features and enables write permissions for the BG3 Toolkit. Including level editing, save editing, and more." As a demonstration, some accompanying images include a level being filled with random environmental pieces like ruined columns, bell towers, and webs of glistening flesh. Mmmmmm, game development.
It's not 100% clear why Larian didn't include these features in the toolkit to begin with, but it may be a case of protecting certain copyrighted assets being scraped easily from the game, or from being altered in a way that is unpleasing to DnD's intellectual property overlords. "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," they said in the notes for last week's patch, suggesting the restrictions to the modding kit went beyond the studio's control.
It's also possible they didn't want to muddy the official mod library with mods that would cause technical and certification problems on consoles. They already have to watch out for willies in the official in-game mod launcher, for example, even if the studio don't mind PC players continuing to make that kind of thing on Nexus Mods and so on. "While some NSFW mods and certain script-heavy modifications may not be supported through the official pipeline," they said, "modding outside of our pipeline will still be an option."
And what an option. The moral of this story is that there's always someone out there willing to take a big boltcutter to the words "read-only". It will be interesting to see what modders can create with the toolkit now entirely unlocked. The studio's previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2, allowed modders to make full campaigns of their own using a huge asset library from the game. For the same thing to be possible in Baldur's Gate 3 - however technically difficult - may lead to some impressive creations filled with many more dungeons and/or dragons.