Okay, so I ran into a little hiccup today while trying to get my game on. I fired up Steam, ready to dive into Baldur’s Gate 3, and… nothing. The game just wouldn’t launch. I clicked “Play,” it acted like it was gonna start for a few seconds, and then – poof – back to square one.
At first, I thought, “Maybe it’s just a one-time glitch.” So, I tried again. Same result. Tried a few more times, restarted Steam, even rebooted my whole computer. No dice. It was pretty annoying since I’d set aside my evening for a decent gaming session. I was a little mad and frustrated. I really wanted to play this game, which I paid for.
Then, I had a thought. I remembered seeing somewhere that sometimes games have issues launching from the launcher. So I decided to try opening the game directly. I went to the folder where Steam installs all its games, found the Baldur’s Gate 3 folder, and then dug into the “bin” subfolder. There it was: “bg3_*.” I double-clicked it, fingers crossed, hoping it would start.
And guess what? It worked! The game launched without a hitch. It seemed like the problem was with the Steam launcher, not the game itself. I finally started to play. After that I found that I can play normally.
I also tried a few other things that didn’t work, but might be useful for someone else. I looked up the minimum system requirements and confirmed my PC was powerful enough. I also thought about updating my graphics drivers, since outdated drivers can cause problems, but it turned out my drivers were already up to date.
Oh, and I saw some folks online suggesting to use the “–skip-launcher” option in Steam’s launch settings. I gave that a shot, but it didn’t do anything for me. Maybe it works for some, but not in my case.
- Tried launching multiple times
- Restarted Steam and computer
- Located the game’s installation folder
- Found and ran “bg3_*”
- Checked system requirements
- Tried “–skip-launcher” option
- Tried updating graphics driver
So, yeah, if you ever have trouble getting Baldur’s Gate 3 to start on Steam, try launching it directly from the installation folder. It might just save you a headache. It’s not a perfect solution, but it worked like a charm for me. I just hope this will help others.
