Baldur’s Gate 3 companion Gale may be “the Sword Coast’s biggest wife guy,” but he’s also apparently a bit of a touchy sort who will permanently leave your party if you don’t cough up magic items when he asks for one. Not cool! Also not intentional, as it turns out, as the latest Baldur’s Gate 3 hotfix prevents him from doing so—unless you want him to.

Hotfix 17 addresses a handful of issues, including the camera sometimes inappropriately zooming in while you’re jumping or casting spells, or thieves’ tools in your camp not being accessible while you’re picking locks. The change to Gale’s behavior is the big one, though. Spoilers follow, so consider yourself warned and go read something else if you don’t want to blow the surprise

Ready?

Here’s what Gale’s bad habit looks like in action: 

It turns out that Gale is afflicted with a condition that requires him to consume magical items in order to prevent his body from being corrupted by a dark power. As the game progresses, he’ll ask players for magic items to absorb so he can “soothe its disquiet”—and should players refuse to do so, he’ll take a powder. 

That became a problem when the previous hotfix made some changes that rendered players unable to hand over the goods under some circumstances, thereby unintentionally triggering his departure. The new update includes a “temporary bug fix” that should put a halt to that behavior until Larian can clear it up properly.

“In Hotfix #16, we began the process of updating a player’s ability to access certain quest-related items, even if they were in the camp chest, or in the inventory of a companion waiting at camp,” Larian explained. “However, the UI through which items can be donated to Gale has not yet been updated, which meant that the dialogue could be triggered if the items were available elsewhere, but would not show in the UI to be donated. This risked placing players in a situation where Gale expected an item from them, and they were unable to provide one.

“With this initial fix, closing the UI or using any line other than ‘I’m not giving you anything. Not now, not ever’ will prevent Gale from immediately abandoning your party, until the UI logic has been updated.”

Of course, if you’re keen to see Gale hit the road, you can come at him with the “not now, not ever” line, and he’ll still be gone. And it will be sad.

Speaking of sadness, Larian also warned that the new hotfix could render some mods “temporarily incompatible,” presumably until the next full patch arrives. If you run into any issues after the hotfix is installed, check to see if the problem persists without the mods installed—if it does, hit up the support team.

The full Baldur’s Gate 3 hotfix 17 patch notes are below.

PERFORMANCE AND CODE

• [Fixed] Black and colourful visual artefacts sometimes appearing for 1 frame on PS5 when switching scenes or opening and closing UI windows.
• [Fix Submitted] Error 544

  We have increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files, including some instances of the Error 544 message. We have also reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don’t exist in the game anymore.

• Guarded against crashes caused when certain character resources (Actions, Bonus Actions, Superiority Dice, etc.) were added and later removed by a mod or cheat engine.

GAMEPLAY AND COMBAT

• [Fixed] In Honour Mode, the aura of Cazador’s [spoiler] now properly dissipates after he’s [spoiler]. Sorry!
• [Fixed] The camera sometimes zooming in while jumping or casting projectile spells.
• [Fixed] The ability to walk through open doors when you click beyond them from far away.
• [Fixed] Thieves’ Tools in the camp chest or inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp not being accessible when lockpicking.

UI

• [Fixed] Safeguard Shield’s Saving Throw modifier is now correctly reflected on the Character Sheet.

FLOW AND SCRIPTING

• [Fixed] Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don’t offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you’re abundantly clear that you don’t plan on ever doing so.

This is a temporary bug fix that aims to avoid Gale immediately leaving the party when players are unable to hand over an item. In Hotfix #16, we began the process of updating a player’s ability to access certain quest-related items, even if they were in the camp chest, or in the inventory of a companion waiting at camp.

However, the UI through which items can be donated to Gale has not yet been updated, which meant that the dialogue could be triggered if the items were available elsewhere, but would not show in the UI to be donated. This risked placing players in a situation where Gale expected an item from them, and they were unable to provide one.

With this initial fix, closing the UI or using any line other than “I’m not giving you anything. Not now, not ever” will prevent Gale from immediately abandoning your party, until the UI logic has been updated.

If you’re keen to give Gale the boot, and don’t have an actual shoe to share in your inventory, selecting “I’m not giving you anything. Not now, not ever”, will still cause Gale to leave your party, permanently!

• [Fixed] characters getting stuck ‘in a story event’, preventing you from controlling them, after getting killed in the fight with Grym.