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Well this is certainly exciting! Ahead of the release of Baldur's Gate 3, which is going to easily be one of the biggest releases this year, the Director of Publishing at Larian Studios teased playing it on Steam Deck on Twitter (uh, sorry on "X").

Michael Douse (Director of Publishing) said on in a post on X "Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam Deck is absolutely wild. The quality of models etc really holds up in cinematics. Can’t wait for you to try it" and in a follow-up reply to another user about performance Douse mentioned "We’re aiming for solid 30 on around medium, but optimisation is ongoing. Worth remembering we have cross-save between PC and PS5 ;)".

The good news is that it will also have full controller support at launch as well. However, no split-screen co-op on Steam Deck as that was disabled. While you could hook it up to a bigger screen with a Docking Station, presumably this was done due to the lower power of the Deck.


Picture credit - Michael Douse, Larian Studios

Will you be picking it up? I've yet to hear back about a review key but I'm hoping to give it a run and see just how well it works on Steam Deck and desktop Linux.

You can pre-order it on GOG and Steam. It releases August 3rd.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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40 comments
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Woodlandor Jul 31, 2023
I have fond memories of playing Baulders Gate when it first came out.
When I got it home and opened the box and saw it was 5 CDs
That was complete craziness at the time lol
Thibug Jul 31, 2023
I have fond memories of playing Baulders Gate when it first came out.
When I got it home and opened the box and saw it was 5 CDs
That was complete craziness at the time lol

Now you open the box and get a piece of paper with a Steam code

Never looked into Baldur's Gate but the game look nice. I will wait to see how the games actually run on the SD (Because no overlay on the screenshot, and it's still a post from someone who want you to get the game )
Holzkohlen Jul 31, 2023
It would not even fit on my Deck. I still have not upgraded my SSD. I'm looking forward to playing it on Thursday on my regular PC though. Been waiting for it for 4 years now. June 6th 2019 is when they first announced it.


Last edited by Holzkohlen on 31 July 2023 at 7:08 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Jul 31, 2023
It would not even fit on my Deck. I still have not upgraded my SSD. I'm looking forward to playing it on Thursday on my regular PC though. Been waiting for it for 4 years now. June 6th 2019 is when they first announced it.
No SD card?
mark348 Jul 31, 2023
I played it a bit and runs good, not great, but it looks really good.
williamjcm Jul 31, 2023
A shame the current version of the game doesn't run on AMD GPUs on Linux (except Steam Deck, it seems) if you select the Vulkan renderer, no matter if you use AMDVLK or RADV drivers.

The D3D11 renderer does work, but vegetation has some nasty flickering.

I really hope it'll be fixed for the game's launch.
denyasis Jul 31, 2023
It would not even fit on my Deck. I still have not upgraded my SSD. I'm looking forward to playing it on Thursday on my regular PC though. Been waiting for it for 4 years now. June 6th 2019 is when they first announced it.

I did the SSD upgrade when I got mine first thing... It was very easy!!

The only weirdness was that the gamepad controls stopped working with the recovery image and then first run initial setup after reinstalling the OS to the new SSD. I had to do everything with the touch screen. But after an update and reboot, it worked great!!

I totally recommend it! I think I got a 1Tb for less than 100$ USD
DoctorJunglist Jul 31, 2023
Split screen is disabled on Deck? Hopefully it won't be disabled on the Linux desktop as well. Not being able to play split screen on my desktop would suck.
Schattenspiegel Jul 31, 2023
Nice, to see them doing some work for the Deck. Hope they'll do the same for desktop Linux.
Still not convinced this is going to be a title for me personally, though. After having a complicated love/hate relationship with D:OS1 I bounced off D:OS2 - like, hard. And given the hype around this one (like D:OS2) it will probably be quite difficult to get an objective assessment of the game anytime soon without actually playing it yourself.
slaapliedje Jul 31, 2023
Split screen is disabled on Deck? Hopefully it won't be disabled on the Linux desktop as well. Not being able to play split screen on my desktop would suck.
Hopefully it's just a matter of detecting 1280x800 and saying 'nope, not gonna happen.'. ha, that'd be 640x800 resolution for each player... Unless split the other way, 1280x400... oof.
pageround Aug 1, 2023
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It would not even fit on my Deck. I still have not upgraded my SSD. I'm looking forward to playing it on Thursday on my regular PC though. Been waiting for it for 4 years now. June 6th 2019 is when they first announced it.

Thankfully the upgrade is pretty painless, watch a video and youll be fine!
datablob Aug 1, 2023
Two more days, two more days.
Klaas Aug 1, 2023
Thankfully the upgrade is pretty painless, watch a video and youll be fine!
On the other hand, don't make the mistakes you always read about, i.e. don't forget to remove the SD card and most importantly – if you manage to strip a screw don't try to use a drill to remove the head and drill through the screen.
Arehandoro Aug 1, 2023
Gonna have to remove a few games to play it on the Deck, although most likely I will mainly play it on the PC. I got it yesterday as well as for the same price they will upgrade to the deluxe edition, can't wait!
Blender-sama Aug 1, 2023
I plan to pick it up at the end of the year. The pile of shame has to shrink first.
Also I want to buy a new PC for that and cities skylines 2.
logge Aug 1, 2023
Nice!
OT: I heard X is not continued to be developed any more. Now everything is thrown into Wayland....
tmtvl Aug 1, 2023
I have fond memories of playing Baldur's Gate when it first came out.
When I got it home and opened the box and saw it was 5 CDs
That was complete craziness at the time lol

Yeah, Baldur's Gate is a great series of games, I'm actually surprised they made a BG3, I thought that ToB ended things pretty conclusively. It's gonna be interesting seeing a really high level campaign now that CHARNAME is a deity (or at least at the power level of one).
officernice Aug 1, 2023
A shame the current version of the game doesn't run on AMD GPUs on Linux (except Steam Deck, it seems) if you select the Vulkan renderer, no matter if you use AMDVLK or RADV drivers.

The D3D11 renderer does work, but vegetation has some nasty flickering.

I really hope it'll be fixed for the game's launch.

Aww that sucks. I have to build a new PC to run this game, and I am definitely going to run full AMD.
soulsource Aug 1, 2023
A shame the current version of the game doesn't run on AMD GPUs on Linux (except Steam Deck, it seems) if you select the Vulkan renderer, no matter if you use AMDVLK or RADV drivers.

The D3D11 renderer does work, but vegetation has some nasty flickering.

I really hope it'll be fixed for the game's launch.

Aww that sucks. I have to build a new PC to run this game, and I am definitely going to run full AMD.
Hmm, I can't confirm without the game, but there are reports that look like Vulkan on AMD is working.
Projectile Vomit Aug 1, 2023
I've been playing this for months, now. It runs smoothly using the Proton Experimental. Early access is nice and all, but I want to play a halfling monk.
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