The most important change in the new Baldur's Gate 3 patch is the ability to take a nice sponge bath

Baldur's Gate 3 finally lets you wash yourself, and your party members, with sponges and soap.

Look, you might question my use of the word "finally" in that opening sentence, as if sponge baths are something players have desperately wanted since launch, but hear me out. Before Baldur's Gate 3 patch 4 went out Thursday morning, the easiest ways to clean the blood and muck off of your filthy party members was to throw bottles of water at their feet or dip into an ankle-high body of water, neither of which are very realistic and thus can be slightly immersion breaking. 

As detailed in the full patch 4 notes, "you can now use sponges and soaps to clean up your party members, removing grime, blood, and bad odours!"

The addition of body odors in that line makes me wonder if your characters' scents, or lack thereof, can play into relationships between party members in any way. I don't think I've ever encountered any dialogue to confirm that, and a cursory Google sweep yielded little results, but surely Larian included that detail for a reason. Right? Right?! (Insert Charlie Day meme).

Anyway, now you have even less of an excuse to parade around the Forgotten Realms wearing a month-old coat of blood from your slain enemies. Unless you just like that look - in that case, you do you.

Here's our list of the best Baldur's Gate 3 classes in case you're jumping in for the first time or gearing up for a new playthrough (which we recommend doing).