After Baldur's Gate 3 modders made custom maps possible, someone's already working on their own version of Avernus
I hope they've opened a window, toiling away near this much lava has to be sweaty work.
Not long after Larian released its official modding toolkit for Baldur's Gate 3, it took next to no time for one modder to find out how to unlock a developer mode in it that gives folks to do things like creating custom levels. Now, almost as quickly, the early looks at the first few levels that modders have been working on are starting to pop up, including a version of Avernus.
If you've been living under a rock, these modding tools came as part of BG3's Patch 7 which also included a heap of other stuff, if not everything that some Durge players wanted.
Taking advantage of the possibilities modder Siegfre's 'BG3 Toolkit Unlocked' has, well, unlocked in terms of level editing, a couple of other modders have begun sharing the early work they've been doing in terms of custom maps.
Arguably the most interesting of what's been shown off so far (thanks, Dexerto) is a custom version of Avernus - you know, that place Karlach comes from - by a Reddit user with the handle katszenBurger. They've shared some snaps of the work-in-progress map and a video showing Astarion running around it, which you can check out below.
"I had a lava area planned too, and maybe I could make the lake explorable a bit (this is a very empty open area, though), but those were all my ideas up to now," the modder wrote of the map, adding that it draws some inspiration from Elden Ring's Caelid, which yup, you can tell. They also painted a bit of a picture of how maps like this come together in the toolkit's editor, saying: "The skybox/atmosphere/shadows are controlled at a global level and you can use their menus to configure scatter and fog effects, among other things...The mountains and the clouds in this case are meshes. The mountains/buildings are just the same mesh they use in the various Avernus scenes."
This isn't the only map they've had a go at making either, having tried a castle as their first project. Having a look, I've also been able to find a post from another modder, Lotrich3, who's been busy working on an area featuring pictureque little forest clearing with a boat, as you can see in this video.
"It seems like the unlocked editor is very promising for custom campaigns," katszenBurger wrote in the comments on their Reddit post about the castle, "I hope that means we will eventually get some full-on user-made DLC or new campaigns, much like there are in the Skyrim modding scene."
Are you impressed Baldur's Gate 3 modders are already managing to create custom maps like this, and are there any areas/places you'd like to see someone have a go at next? Let us know below.