Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Slowdown Issues Because It Keeps Thinking About All Your Theft and Violence

Baldur’s Gate 3 gets Patch 5 this week, and developer Larian Studios has promised it will fix issues caused by the recently released Patch 4.

Players reported increased performance issues in Act 3 following the release of Patch 4, with some who contacted IGN calling Baldur’s Gate 3 “unplayable” due to crushing lag.

Patch 5 is *a lot* and we’re getting ready to talk about it. For now, we caught the nasty bug causing slowdowns and the good news is: it’s fixed in Parch 5! That, and so much more, is cooking for this week. https://t.co/KCtDb8MbQP

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) November 27, 2023

In a statement issued to IGN, Larian explained what had caused the problem. It all boils down to the game refusing to forget unnoticed thefts and acts of vandalism, which eventually bogged down performance in the late game.

“In Patch 4 we introduced a fix that would prevent the Scrying Eyes in Moonrise Towers from immediately calling the guards on you when stealing, even if you were sneaking, or invisible for example,” Larian said.

“This fix had the unintended consequence of causing unnoticed thefts and acts of vandalism to remain stuck forever within the ‘did anyone see me’ pipeline, rather than timing out and moving on, as is intended. Essentially, your dungeon master — in a real-world sense — constantly thinks about the acts of theft and violence the player keeps doing, without ever moving on or verbalising them. Mulling on it ad infinitum.

“These unnoticed and eternally-active acts of theft and violence eventually bogged down the game. The more a player commits those acts, the more the game is trying to keep that all up to date and in memory, and so the more slowdowns start happening. Essentially, the dungeon master becomes unable to operate. By Act 3 this caused slowdown issues, which after some sleuthing we’re extremely happy to say we’ve solved in Patch 5, which is in testing and scheduled to release this week.”

Larian is currently on a victory lap following the breakout success of Baldur’s Gate 3, with seven wins at the recent Golden Joysticks and eight nominations at the upcoming Game Awards. Larian is set to announce Baldur’s Gate 3’s long-awaited Xbox release date at the awards show on December 7, and has even started to tease its “next big game”.

Baldur’s Gate 3, of course, has been a massive commercial and critical success since its official release on PC in August. IGN gave it a 10/10, praising its “crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.