"Baldur's Gate 3" still stands as the epic isometric party-based RPG that changed the world, and while the OG Infinity Engine vibe was strong, it also stood out on its own merits: in 92% of our reviews, we called the game " a deep, rich, and wonderfully written RPG that doesn't shy away from the great legacy of gaming that inspired it."

That was in 2015, nearly a decade ago, indeed. That's why it's a bit of a surprise that developer Obsidian has released a new patch for the game, which is available on Steam's "Pillars of Eternity" beta branch.

The patch does not add any new content, but it fixes a number of bugs and gameplay issues. There are no full-blown game breakers on the fix list, but things like unexpected T-pause, trouble with audio triggers, slowness when skipping intros, and inaccessible areas in various scenes have all been cleared up.

What you won't find in the patch are the new features added to the sequel, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. In response to fan requests for the turn-based mode added to Pillars 2 in a post-launch update, Obsidian's design director Josh Sawyer (via GamesRadar) suggested that it would not happen due to technical limitations.

So why a new patch for a nearly decade-old RPG, when Obsidian's first-person RPG "Avowed," set in the world of Pillars of Eternity, is scheduled for release this year, and the studio wants to see where it all began? They may be willing to tweak and tighten everything up for newcomers who want to see where it all began. It is also possible that the developers got bored during the vacations, but ...... No, that probably won't happen.

Some optimists hope that this patch may be a sign that the wheels of "Pillars of Eternity 3" are turning. He also said that he would like to make a third film. He also said at the GDC roundtable that the first two Pillars games were the "most compromised" he had ever worked on because crowdfunding backers wanted a very specific Infinity Engine-style experience.

Pillars of Eternity 3 doesn't seem as long-winded as it did just a year ago; Baldur's Gate 3 powerfully showed that there is still life left in the old genre, and Obsidian, at least in theory, now has access to Microsoft's money Now that it has, anything seems possible - after Avowed, of course.

Also, Pillars seems to be the favorite of a very important figure in Microsoft's gaming industry: Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently released Xbox's Year in Review stats, revealing that he has played 124 hours of this game He revealed that he has played the game for 124 hours.

To see the new patch for Pillars of Eternity in action, right-click on the Pillars entry in the Steam library, select "Properties" and head to the "Beta" menu. Under "Join Beta," select "public_beta," wait for the game to update, and you're done. The full patch notes are as follows.