Download Issues Plague Baldur’s Gate 3 Launch
Are you eager to dive into Baldur’s Gate 3, which was released just yesterday on PC? If so, you’ll first need to tackle a formidable challenge: the game weighs in at a whopping 122GB! Unfortunately, a number of internet users ran into major issues with downloading the game on August 3, 2023. One player took to Twitter (now referred to as “X”) to voice their frustration, stating that a download process that had been running for “twelve hours” was only showing as two hours on Valve’s platform. Our colleagues have reported that some users encountered even more severe problems, such as downloads failing altogether with messages like “no internet connection” or “inaccessible content.” However, in some cases, users were able to improve their download experience by restarting Steam or using a wired Wi-Fi connection.
A Record of Baldur’s Gate 3 Launch
It appears that the source of the issue is the overwhelming popularity of the game developed by studio Larian. According to a post by the team’s editor, the number of reports on Steam increased significantly yesterday from 4 p.m. (when the PC version was released globally). Baldur’s Gate 3 was certainly a highly anticipated game, but it seems that even the Belgian developers were surprised by the extent of its success. On the day of its release, the role-playing game garnered a staggering 472,000 simultaneous players on Steam, making it the second largest launch of the year on the platform, following Hogwarts Legacy (which had almost 880,000 players at the same time) and beating Sounds of the Forest.
With a gameplay length of over 200 hours for a thorough playthrough, even gamers with high endurance will find themselves unable to complete the game in a day. If you’re experiencing any issues with Steam at the moment, there’s not much you can do aside from waiting. However, you can always visit our Baldur’s Gate 3 class tier list to start crafting your character or take a look at the Baldur’s Gate 3 cast to see whose voices you’ll be hearing.
The success of Baldur’s Gate 3 is a double-edged sword, as the game was unable to benefit from pre-downloads due to its immense popularity. Nevertheless, Baldur’s Gate 3 is poised to become one of the best RPGs out there. “Larian is very faithful to the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, it’s pure role-playing where you can really do anything, it’s truly magical,” says Anagund, the editor. Already, the few reviews on Metacritic range between 90 and 100. Our test house will be receiving a copy of the game next week, but the future looks very promising indeed.
Causes of Baldur’s Gate 3 crashing on Steam:
- Your PC configuration may not meet the system requirements of the game.
- Corrupted or missing game files.
- Your computer might not be running on the latest Windows OS or graphics driver version.
- Use of an outdated DirectX version.
- Either Baldur’s Gate 3 game or the Steam client is not updated.
- Background running tasks, especially third-party overlay apps, can cause performance issues.
- Antivirus Program or Windows Firewall protection might be blocking the game.
Possible solutions:
Repair Game Files
- Launch the Steam client and click on Library.
- Right-click on Baldur’s Gate 3 from the list, click on Properties.
- Go to Local Files and click on Verify Integrity of Game Files.
- After completing the process, reboot the PC.
Update Baldur’s Gate 3
- Open Steam and go to Library.
- Click on Baldur’s Gate 3 from the left pane.
- Steam will automatically search for the available update.
- If an update is available, click on Update.
- Wait until the update completes and then reboot the PC.
