Baldur's Gate 3 players come together to crack nifty workarounds to topple a progression-blocking bug impacting numerous quests

Baldur's Gate 3 players have noticed a new progressing-blocking bug from the latest hotfix, and are pooling their resources to come up with a list detailing everything they know.

Yesterday saw Baldur's Gate 3's hotfix 16 arrive, bringing with it a workaround for a progression-blocking scenario where players could become trapped in the Astral Realm. That's all well and good, but now players are reporting that the hotfix has stopped them from progressing in another way - items in inventories not being recognized correctly.

Over on the game's subreddit, one player reports that after the new hotfix, the smith Dammon sometimes won't recognize that the player has Infernal Iron on them. This is a pretty damn big problem, because it means the player can't progress Karlach's questline, and might even miss out on their story entirely if Dammon isn't open to receiving the Infernal Iron later on.

According to Reddit users, there's a total of 23 items that aren't being correctly accepted by Baldur's Gate 3 characters for quests. These include the three Netherstones, the Orphic Hammer, the Spear of Night, the Githyanki Egg for Esther, the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength for Helsik, and the Dawnmaster's Crest, to pluck a few examples from the community list.

However, there are some workarounds from the community. With the 'Invitation to Raphael's Boudoir' item not being recognized, for example, the solution is apparently to just jump around the building's exterior until you reach a balcony and can enter the Boudoir itself. There are only workarounds available for seven known items right now.

It appears players on all platforms are being affected. According to the Reddit community members, there have been noticeably more PC and Xbox players affected by the bug than PS5 players, but it's worth noting that the bug has reached players on all three platforms for Baldur's Gate 3.

Some are even theorizing the bug is mod-related. The investigation's lead, currently compiling all the evidence into the one Reddit post, is asking for unmodded players to step forward and confirm this, but right now it doesn't seem like anyone's been able to step up to the plate.

Whatever the case might be, it might honestly be worth pausing your Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough if you run into this problem. You wouldn't want to ignore Karlach's questline and progress with the game's main story, only to miss out on the companion's great story thanks to this bug.

Xbox is getting a firmware update just to fix broken Baldur's Gate 3 saves, which Microsoft is working on right now.