Larian Studios has announced Nature's Power, the fourth major update for Baldur's Gate 3. This update introduces the first playable class, the druid, who, among many other interesting abilities, can transform into a buried death badger with glowing eyes.

For those unfamiliar with the game, the new class in Baldur's Gate 3 is the Big Deal, appearing with an entirely new set of voiced dialogue for the game and introducing new options and story scenes throughout. Druids have over 30 spells and abilities, but let's be honest: this game is all about animal transformations. You can be a direwolf, a polar bear, a spider, a raven, a cat, a rote (a large ox), a tadpole-like beast, and of course a badger.

I want you to see this. That little red guy is no more.

According to Larian, NPCs respond to certain animal forms, giving the example of chatting with a bear when you're a bear; as a D&D game, the druid also comes from one of the two traditional "circles," adding yet another customization option.

Giant killer badgers aside, the patch itself makes quite a few changes to the game. One of these is the option to play with "Loaded Dice" (all interactions in the game depend on the roll of the simulated dice). This choice does not affect damage rolls, but otherwise "helps smooth out the extremes of the bell curve, [but] the core elements of the RNG are retained, so that a player can roll the dice many times in a row and not be unlucky or super lucky."

There are also many quality-of-life improvements, including the ability to click on and target portraits, which has been requested, a "torch" button that makes equipping torches less painful, the addition of an "escape" option during combat, the ability to share and steal things more easily in cooperative multiplayer etc.

Finally, Larian Studios has announced two new Larian... No, they announced the opening of two new studios. Larian in Guilford, England and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The news is accompanied by an unusually poetic note about the scheduling of the studios: "This expansion not only increases the number of developers working on the game, but also allows development to follow the sun, with each studio acting as a mirror image of each other whenever possible."

A force of nature patch will be available for Baldur's Gate 3 "very soon when it is ready." The question of whether to play now or wait for the full release remains unresolved, but those badgers may tip the scales.