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This Baldur’s Gate 3 mod is our favorite this month – turn every battle into a musical performance

It's a new experience to behold
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This Baldur’s Gate 3 mod is our favorite this month – turn every battle into a musical performance
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Music plays a huge role in the overall gameplay of Baldur’s Gate 3, and things are turned up a notch for the Bard class. You can use music to influence battles and cast spells. Bards can use lutes, flutes, and more, to use music as a strategy to rally allies and fight enemies.

Well, we came across this Celestial Instruments mod that adds a whole new level of flair to the already beautiful musical performances. From angelic wings to corrupted instrument designs, the VFX details introduced by this mod have made it one of our all-time favorites for Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s a perfect addition for any player who wants their musical abilities to stand out.

What does the Celestial Instruments mod do?

The Celestial Instruments mod for Baldur’s Gate 3 takes the game’s musical elements and adds some beautiful, dramatic visual effects. First off, you’ve two key themes to pick from, divine and corrupted. Each theme has its set of glowing effects and visuals that make the songs look almost like a spell.


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Corrupted Wings Of Celestial Instruments Mod For Baldur's Gate 3
Corrupted Wings, source: Nexus Mods

There is plenty of variety within each theme. The divine theme has six custom visual effects, and the corrupted theme has three variants of custom effects. You can also make your instruments (lyre and flute) look completely different by choosing from holy or corrupted designs. To take things to the next level, the mod includes options to equip different wings and halos (based on your theme), adding another layer of visual impact to your musical performance.

The mod also significantly improves the in-combat music performances. The intensity of visual effects builds up with each round, peaking on the third.

How to install the Baldur’s Gate 3 Celestial Instruments mod

Before you install the Celestial Instruments mod, there are three things that you should know.

First of all, the mod requires the Patch 7 update of Baldur’s Gate 3. As such, make sure your game is updated, otherwise it may cause crashes and other problems. Similarly, the mod depends on the Ember’s Lute mod, which is a music performance enhancement mod, so you also need to have that installed for Celestial Instruments to work.

Lastly, the mod’s developer doesn’t recommend installing it on Steam Deck or on systems running Baldur’s Gate 3 on minimum requirements. That’s because it is a very VFX heavy mod, and running on lower-end systems may cause you performance hiccups.

With that said, here’s how you can install the Celestial Instruments mod:

  • Install and open Baldur’s Gate 3 Mod Manager
  • Install the .zip file of Celestial Instruments and extract its .pak file
  • Open BG3 Mod Manager and go to your mods folder (accessible in Mod Manager)
  • Drag the .pak file of Celestial Instruments and drop it directly into the load order
  • Move your mod from Inactive to Active in the Mod Manager
  • Click Export to update your modsettings.lsx file

For more information, you can check the BG3 Nexus Mods Installation Guide.

We’ve seen a bunch of great BG3 mods in our time, including an HD texture pack and the equipment failure mod, but Celestial Instruments takes things up a notch with stunning visuals and variety.

About the Author

Sameed is a writer specializing is tech & hardware.