Baldur's Gate 3 devs celebrate 50 million mod downloads since Patch 7, including 10,000 renaming Withers to Bone Daddy: "Uh, glad we could facilitate that"

Baldur's Gate 3 companion Shadowheart, a young woman with braided black hair and plated armor, smirking while glancing to the side
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian says there have been 50 million mod downloads for the game since September's Patch 7. You'd never guess it, but a portion of those mods were acts of devotion. More specifically, 10,000 mods were downloaded to BG3 with the purpose of renaming Withers, a shriveled skeleton man, to "Bone Daddy." 

"So, uh, glad we could facilitate that," Larian says on its Twitter announcement.

What about Withers has people so eager to be undead? Let's think about it. First, Withers is a man of mystery. The camp companion never offers much backstory, instead electing to describe himself as a "keeper of records." So kind of like the DMV, I guess. 

That isn't particularly sexy in itself, but then Withers — who allows players to resurrect companions — wears some really awesome leather shoulder pads. And his eyes are a beautiful shade of lake blue, if you can look past the fact that the skin around them has the same texture as tree bark. 

Okay, I don't really get it. But, clearly, other people do. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made stickers of Withers arching his back while shirtless, or downloaded all those Bone Daddy mods. 

And they wouldn't be downloading this "big naturals" mod, either, which voice actor Stephen Boxer finds disappointing for how its "bazongas" make Withers' back ache, as he says in a Cameo

If you're wondering how Withers' petite frame can handle having any breasts at all, allow me to direct you to the "very handsome and beautiful" Withers mod, which appears to inject his face with copious amounts of lip filler. Withers fans think of everything. 

And they are everywhere. "I am one of 10,000," the official Larian account replies to Larian's tweet. What a powerful community. 

Baldur's Gate 3 looks like a totally different RPG with a first-person camera mod, and it's so cool that Larian lead Swen Vincke says "I want to play this."

Ashley Bardhan
Contributor

Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.