The new hotfix for Baldur's Gate 3 reverts one of the most controversial cat transformations in history to its original state and resolves misunderstandings in the behavior of your companions

Dear readers, the long-standing national concern has finally come to an end. An injustice has been rectified, and where there was once only darkness, there is now light. Your children can once again sleep peacefully in their beds. I am referring, of course, to the latest update for Baldur's Gate 3, which has restored His Majesty—everyone's beloved and excessively arrogant feline—to his original, superior, and furless form.

Additionally, it has addressed several other issues, but, well, those are of lesser significance.

As reported by PCG's Ted Litchfield less than a day ago, the third patch for BG3 in September introduced numerous changes and fixes, but it also brought about one controversial alteration: Duke, a significant cat you can encounter at the Last Light Inn in the game's second act, was updated from a bald, sphinx-like appearance to a fluffy, longhaired one. To be fair to Larian, this change was made to differentiate Duke from Steelclaw, another cat you can encounter in the same act, but fans (myself included) remained unhappy. The fluffy look simply didn't suit this regal purring.

After careful consideration, it's clear that Larian agreed, as today's hotfix #8 states, "Shaved His Majesty, who is once again a sphinx," and instead modifies Steelclaw's eye color, ensuring that the duo are no longer identical. Whew.

The hotfix wasn't exclusively focused on the cat issue, just to clarify. It also reverted a modification from patch 3, which aimed to ensure that when you dismiss party members, they would surrender all story items in their inventory before returning to camp. While this change functioned smoothly in newly created games post-patch, it encountered complications when applied to pre-patch saved games. Specifically, it compelled dismissed party members to hand over every single item marked with an orange highlight—this included their notably heavy camp supply packs—before departing, often resulting in players becoming encumbered by excessive weight.

The entire system has been eliminated, and companions will no longer unload all the items they believe you should carry, akin to a child in a supermarket. The studio achieved this by restoring companion behavior to its state before patch 3. In simpler terms, when you dismiss them, companions will now hold onto all your orange items, be it camp supply packs or quest-related items.

I'm optimistic that Larian can reintroduce the system as originally intended at some point. It would be great to retrieve my story-critical equipment from party members without also receiving their camp supply packs and alchemy pouches.

I've contacted Larian to inquire about the potential return of the magic pockets system in a revamped form in a future patch, and I'll provide an update if I receive a response.

While those are the most notable changes, they are by no means the only modifications introduced in Baldur's Gate 3's hotfix #8. You can access the complete patch notes below:

• Companions will no longer transfer story items in their inventory to the player upon dismissal, restoring Patch 2 behaviour.
• Fixed reaction popups sometimes showing no text descriptions of the reactions available.
• Fixed a multiplayer crash that would occur when listening to a dialogue after an active roll.
• Eavesdrop will no longer trigger when a character is in any Character Creation session, such as level up or the magic mirror.
• Fixed a bug in Vulkan causing DEVICE_LOST crashes.
• Fixed a bug where Skeletons created using Animate Dead were missing their ranged weapons, despite specialising in them.
• Fixed an issue where the Weapon Master Feat would show as incomplete if a player was already proficient with all weapons.
• Fixed a crash when re-assigning characters in splitscreen.
• Fixed a visual issue with volumetric fog and materials generation.
• Fixed an issue with invalid savegames being created.
• Restored Raphael's hair colour and horns. The House of Hope is once again fashion-forward.
• Fixed an issue where Splint Armour for Githyanki Females caused some unnecessarily psychedelic visual effects.
• Shaved His Majesty, who is once again a Sphynx. Steelclaw's eye colour has been adjusted so they are no longer identical twins.
• Fixed Raphael's portraits after restoring his hair colour. Maybe he's born with it, maybe it's Avernus.
• Fixed Twitch drops not being claimable on PS5.