Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam Deck: Will The CRPG Be Playable?

With Baldur's Gate 3 about to release on PC, and a PlayStation version launching next month, fans are extremely excited to play what is essentially a D&D campaign writ large. However, those same fans are also curious as to whether there's a way to play Baldur's Gate 3 portably, and whether you can play Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam Deck. 

Does Baldur's Gate 3 work on Steam Deck?

You're in luck if you're one of those people. So, Baldur's Gate 3 works out of the box on Steam Deck using Proton, meaning that you can easily find a compatibility layer that works with the game. However, we'd also recommend that you limit your frame rate to around 40FPS if you want the game to remain stable. 

It can hit higher frame rates but it won't remain stable at all, so if you prefer your frame rate to remain stable then limit it. 

It's also extremely important to note one thing: Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 still doesn't run amazingly on PC. Even though Larian has issued several fixes in an attempt to fix the performance of the act on PC specifically, the Steam Deck absolutely chugs in the big city and can hit single-digit framerates. It's not at all consistent and is still playable if you can put up with it, but if you can't then you'll really want to wait until Larian releases just a few more patches.

The Perfect Portable RPG Machine

The Steam Deck is perhaps the perfect device for a game like Baldur's Gate 3 which has incredible scale and length. It means that players will be able to pick up and play the game without having to worry about going through the boot process every single time that they want to play on their PC, and it also means that you can play the game while traveling or otherwise occupied, allowing a whole other audience to play the game and experience it. 

It'll also seemingly be the only way to play Baldur's Gate 3 portably, with the game only confirmed for next-generation consoles (alongside PC). For this, we can gather that the Nintendo Switch absolutely won't be seeing a port of the title anytime soon, and if it somehow gets a port at all it'll be a severely downgraded version of the game.