There’s a lot going on this week, folks. Monday saw a thick glut of Steam Machine news, and today Rockstar switched on the Grand Theft Auto 6 info-hose. I am here to tell you not to care about any of it. Here’s the real story: Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 have got new patches.
Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition, and Icewind Dale—Edition? You better believe it’s Enhanced—all just got a new 2.7 patch courtesy of Beamdog. This is the patch that entered beta last February, now available for all and sundry. Well, I suppose the beta was also available to all and sundry, but now all and sundry are getting it whether they click a button or not.
It’s a doozy of a patch, too. Beamdog says that it’s focused on quality-of-life updates for the Infinity Engine games this far out (14 years) from their Enhanced Edition releases, and the two big ones in 2.7 are: Steam cloud saves that work how they ought to (GOG cloud saves work “properly”, too) and Apple Silicon support on Mac.
Cloud saves on Steam are now controlled, uh, by Steam. That is to say, if you toggle them off in your Steam client settings for BG:EE, they will be off. Turn them on? They’ll be on. You might think, “Surely it always worked like this?” but you’d be wrong. Previously, cloud saves were configured in the gameplay menu for the games themselves—the Steam client settings were a kind of vestigial organ. Which is very counterintuitive and not how pretty much every other game on Steam works, so this is a welcome change.
Apple Silicon support, meanwhile, means the games will now run natively on Apple’s ARM-based Mac hardware. This was almost certainly done because Apple is set to phase out its Rosetta 2 translation software that lets x86-based applications run on the company’s M-series chips (though it does promise to keep it for some older and unmaintained bits of software). Anyway, it’s good news—I can’t pretend these games didn’t already run like a dream on my M1-series MacBook Air, but now they’ll be even dreamier, and potentially a little lighter on the ol’ battery.
Anyway, I am as ever very pleased to see these classics continue to get care and attention. Here are the full patch notes for 2.7:
Beamdog Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale 2.7 patch notes
Steam Cloud saves can now be controlled via the Steam client — Previously, the only way to enable or disable Steam Cloud Saves for BG1:EE, BG2:EE, and IWD:EE was within the Gameplay Options of the games. Now, Steam Cloud Saves are controlled by the Steam client and the individual game properties settingsGOG Galaxy Cloud saves — now functioning properlyAdded Apple Silicon support — With native support for Apple Silicon, on Mac devices you can expect faster app launch times, overall improved performance, and faster rendering. In addition, laptops will benefit from lower power consumption while playing, leading to longer battery lifeNew localizations — We added the following community-translated languages: BG:SoD – Chinese (Simplified), Korean, Russian; BGII – Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Ukrainian; IWD – Hungarian, JapaneseSoD language switch — Switching to the SoD campaign will now only display languages where SOD was translated. Previously, the game always displayed the full list of languages that BG1’s base game supported. If you are playing BG1 or The Black Pits in a language that SoD doesn’t support when you switch to the SoD campaign, the game will change the language to English automaticallyDynamic language support — We made changes to allow easier language updates and additions in the futureChinese font change — At the request of the Chinese localization volunteers, we have changed the font for ChineseFont Size saved per font language — The Font Size zoom setting is now saved per font languageIndexing Fix — Resolved an off‑by‑one error in rebuilt BIF files that affected some community toolsiOS Restore Purchases — The “Restore Purchases” button has returned, allowing the game to sync with Apple’s purchase historyMobile Keyboard Improvements — The UI now shifts so the text cursor remains visible above the virtual keyboard, preventing cursor loss and mis‑registered taps on iOS & AndroidAndroid Foldable Support — Fixed UI scaling and touch‑input issues on foldable and tall‑aspect devices. The game now properly resizes when the device’s screen configuration changesAndroid Character Export — Exporting a character now also places the file into the user‑accessible directoryiOS Modding now supported — The game now stores and reads data from a location visible to standard file browsers. You can manage saves and other files directly on your device or by connecting it to a computer.Android Override Folder Optimization — Fixed long boot delays caused by large /override/ folders. Importing is manual via an in‑game UIAndroid DLC Display Fix — The Fists of the Fallen DLC for BG2 now correctly shows as installedAndroid Modding now supported — This update resolves a bug that caused incorrect permissions, preventing access via PC or file browsers. Existing installations with incorrect permissions cannot be repaired. You must uninstall and reinstall the game. Because uninstalling removes saves, export them first and copy anything important to a PC:
