Baldur’s Gate 3 Multiplayer Guide – How to Play With Friends

Baldur’s Gate 3, like many other RPGs, is more enjoyable when played with friends. The game has co-op support, allowing you to complete the entire game with your friends. You can have a maximum of four players in your party, similar to Divinity Original Sin 2. Your friends can either create their custom characters or take control of one of your AI companions if they join your session midway. This guide provides all the information you need about Baldur’s Gate 3 multiplayer.

How to Play Baldur’s Gate 3 With Friends

To play Baldur’s Gate 3 with friends, select Multiplayer at the main menu. From there, click the Create button at the bottom of the screen to create a multiplayer lobby. After creating a lobby, change the “Who can join your game?” setting to Friends Only or Invitation Only. Then click the empty player portraits to send invitations to your friends. You can also send the Server ID listed on the right side of the screen to your friends, and they can use that to join via Direct Connect.

If your lobby is starting a new game, you can click Launch when everyone is ready and you’ll all be sent to the character creation screen before starting your journey together from the very beginning. If someone leaves the game, control of their character will be handed over to a player still in the session. Character assignments can be changed by pressing Escape and opening the Session menu.

Related: Baldur’s Gate 3 Character Creation Guide: Best Classes, Skills, and Abilities

The Session menu is also where the host can invite other players to the game. The game is saved on the host’s machine, and they’ll need to invite everyone to the game if you all decide to play again and continue your adventure. The host must load up the game on their own, press the Escape key, and open the Session menu to invite everyone back to the game.

Does Baldur’s Gate 3 Have Crossplay?

Yes, as of Patch 9, Baldur’s Gate 3 will support crossplay using a direct connection between Steam and GOG on PC & Mac. However, you cannot play with friends on different platforms. For instance, if you play on a PC, you won’t be able to play with a friend on PlayStation 5. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been an announcement by Larian about when we can expect this functionality (if at all). If you plan on getting Baldur’s Gate on multiple platforms because it doesn’t support Crossplay, rest easy knowing there is Cross-Save so you can at least keep your data between your different platforms.

Does Baldur’s Gate 3 Have Split-Screen Couch Co-Op?

Split-screen has been unavailable during Early Access, but fans can be happy knowing that split-screen couch co-op will be available on launch, except on Steam Deck. However, it is essential to know that you only can play with two people with split-screen mode. This means AI companions will fill the two remaining party slots. During an official developer post, it was announced that Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t being released on Xbox because they are still working on issues with Baldur’s Gate 3 split-screen and multiplayer functionality with the Series S.

How to Fix Baldur’s Gate 3 Multiplayer Not Working

Even though Larian is deploying patches and hotfixes to all versions of the game at a rapid pace, there is still a plethora of issues with Baldur’s Gate 3 multiplayer. The game is in early access, so issues are to be expected, but many people have been running into very strange problems when playing with friends online. One bug in particular that has been plaguing Baldur’s Gate 3 co-op sessions is the inability to end your turn during combat, which essentially locks the game up and prevents you from progressing.

The only advice I can offer is to save often in case you encounter any issues. While Larian has fixed a lot of the multiplayer issues you may have experienced during Early Access, we suspect that there will still be issues during launch. If you can’t connect to your friend’s lobby, try having a different player host or try joining via a different method such as Direct Connect. Again, some things just aren’t working as well as they should be right now, and you may just have to wait for a patch before playing Baldur’s Gate 3 online.

Author’s Note: I wrote this guide while playing Baldur’s Gate on Steam Deck.