Baldur’s Gate 3 update could make a notoriously difficult quest much easier

One of the most notoriously frustrating challenges in Baldur’s Gate 3 Rescue the prisoners in the Iron Throne, Gortash’s underwater “compound center”, aka prison, where Omelum, Duke Ravengard and others are held. The meeting is Limited to only a few rounds depending on the difficulty level, And the prisoners are interspersed across the map in tricky locations. Freeing the prisoners is a difficult task in itself, but on top of that, the area is prone to glitches and bugs, frustrating players who have a lot of time planning or strategizing before their descent into the prison.

The Iron Throne area is linked to various quests, such as Retrieve Omeluum and Avenge the Drowned, and not being able to save any of the characters has dramatic consequences for the story overall, and impacts who will help players in the battles ahead. This makes Bugs especially unfortunate, considering major story characters such as Grand Duke Ravengard and Wyll’s relationship quest are on the line. luckily, Larian has released a hotfix that will hopefully address some of the pathfinding issues that some prisoners had.

Why BG3’s “Iron Throne Quest” is so hard

The Iron Throne must be completed in just a few rounds

Whether you’re playing on Honor Mode or Explorer, opening the hatch to the Iron Throne triggers a countdown timer based on the party’s difficulty level. Players will have a limited number of turns to save everyone they can before the whole place is flooded, Drowned all prisoners and failed any quests associated with them. This is one of the more challenging encounters in the game because of the turn limit, but also because planning the correct path for each character in the party and avoiding the Sahaguin enemies is crucial.

However, the difficulty of saving everyone is aggravated by the number of glitches in the Iron Throne prison. Imagine finally getting all the prisoners back to the center of the map to escape, Only to find that they won’t climb the ladder to the submersible. One bug that affects pathfeeding in this area causes certain prisoners to fail to take their turn climbing the ladders back into the submersible to escape. After players instruct the prisoners to head to the submersible, instead of climbing up to safety, they end up walking aimlessly around the chamber, refusing to climb up.

Why saving everyone in the underwater prison is easier now

Larian releases a hotfix that can help prisoners escape

On October 1st, Larian released Hotfix #27 with a rather vague tone that will hopefully make the underwater prison easier: “Letters Reminded How to Use Ladders.” Although it is not entirely clear if this particular note will affect the behavior of the Iron Throne prisoners when they interact with the ladders leading to the submersible, the implication is that None Characters interacting with ladders will be more likely to climb them. This is great news for anyone trying to save all the prisoners in the underwater prison and continue all the quests associated with the characters.

For most updates and hotfixes to major areas such as the Iron Throne, Larian typically specifies that the update applies to that particular region. Because they did not designate that here means there is no guarantee that the ambiguous ladder note will solve the pathfinding bugs that occur once prisoners have reached the base of the submersible ladders. However, assuming that this hotfix does Does Apply to the Iron Throne encounter, one of the most frustrating and challenging areas of the game was much easier.

Sources: Baldur’s Gate 3