The new Baldur's Gate 3 hotfix brings proper romance to the game's most evil companion

A new hotfix for Baldur's Gate 3 is now live, and it brings good news for players eager to bump uglies with the deadly drow Minthara: You'll now be able to carry on your romance of evil through the game's third act.

The problem, according to the update announcement on Steam, was a bug that was blocking some bits of Minthara's dialog, as well as some "hot takes" from your other party members about your decision to start a relationship with her. (Let's be honest, she asked you to help her slaughter a group of druids and tieflings the first time you met her, and your reaction is, "Damn, that's hot?" Yeah, I'd have some thoughts on that too.).

"If approval is high enough, your romance with Minthara will progress in Act 3," Larian said. "This unlocks several new dialogues allowing you to explore and deepen the relationship, and discover more details of Minthara's backstory. Alongside many lines of interactive dialogue, many more non-interactive voiced lines are available with Minthara as a romantic partner."

The fix will also unlock some of those aforementioned hot takes: "Other companions in the party will comment on the relationship and may even find themselves on Minthara's bad side (there is no good side; we've looked really hard for it) should they have their own romantic entanglements with you."

One other thing to note, especially for those looking to keep it casual, is that dating the drow sounds like kind of a permanent deal in this case: "Minthara won't watch silently if you stray from her side," Larian warned.

It's fair to say that there hasn't been a great outcry amongst Baldur's Gate 3 players for the opportunity to romance Minthara. She came in dead-last in our very scientific ranking of Baldur's Gate 3 party members, in large part because most people decided to kill her instead of indulging her murderous ways. 

On the other hand, as we acknowledged, "She's hot," and a couple of recent mods have made it possible to recruit her into your party without becoming a mass murderer, although it pretty heavily compromises the character: She's evil, man! You're not supposed to be running around with her in a good-guy playthrough. If you're really that interested, just commit.

Another noteworthy fix is the addition of "nipple covers" for a particular type of demon (spoiler, sorry) that will appear when the nudity filter is enabled. Your mileage may vary on the use of "noteworthy" here, but let's be honest, that's not the sort of bug fix you see every day.

The hotfix also makes a number of PlayStation 5-exclusive fixes, including "graphical issues on HDR TVs, an issue in which game audio on PS5 stopped working, and a crash that would occur when opening the onscreen keyboard." The full patch notes are below.

Highlights

• Fixed a bug that locked players out of many of Minthara’s lines of dialogue.

Crashes and blockers

• Fixed sometimes not being able to talk to NPCs or party members because the game thought you were still in a dialogue.
  
• Fixed a rare crash that would occur when faraway characters got close to the party.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur if a guard responding to a crime created a summon (e.g. an elemental), and you fled the combat or were incapacitated without killing the summon.
  
• PS5
  
• Fixed an issue causing the game's audio to stop working on PS5.
  
• Fixed graphical issues on HDR TVs when the HDR black level calibration was set to 0.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur when opening the onscreen keyboard.

Performance

• Fixed a memory leak when creating and destroying many objects.

Multiplayer

• Improved performance when cycling through Character Sheet tabs in splitscreen.
  
• Fixed splitscreen not working correctly when a client with splitscreen already enabled joins a multiplayer game.
  
• Fixed dismissed avatars not showing up properly in Withers' Wardrobe if the host is at camp and is already looking inside the wardrobe.
  
• Fixed characters sometimes disappearing on splitscreen when the client reconnects after disconnecting while listening in on a dialogue.
  
• Clients rejoining a multiplayer game where there's a dismissed avatar in Withers' Wardrobe will now be able to pick that avatar up again rather than have to create a new avatar. (This bug would happen when the client left the session and another player selected that client's avatar in the middle of the dismiss-to-camp dialogue.)

Flow and gameplay

• Trader NPCs will now retain their Approval Rating of avatars and companions even after they're dismissed to Withers' Wardrobe.
  
• Fixed SPOILER not dying and therefore not triggering the Game Over flow if you bring him to 0 HP outside of combat in SPOILER.
  
• Fixed not being able to talk to Minthara at camp if you dismissed her outside of camp.
  
• Fixed Level Up not working as expected if you level up while the game is saving.
  
• Fixed Hag's Bane not having an effect on Auntie Ethel.

UI

• Fixed text being cut off in the title of tutorial pop-ups.
  
• Fixed button prompts getting cut off on the Multiplayer Settings screen on splitscreen.
  
• Fixed some UIs not updating when saving, causing, for example, Shadowheart's inventory to appear empty when you recruit her on the beach.
  
• Fixed the tadpole count in the Radial Menu on controller.

Controller

• Fixed characters getting stuck when the Analog Stick Selection setting is set to Left Stick and you rotate the stick in circles as far as it can go.

Art

• Added nipple covers to SPOILER for when the nudity filter is enabled.

Level design

• Moved Withers' Wardrobe in the crèche camp to avoid clipping with Shadowheart's tent.