Baldur’s Gate 3 – Crashing at Startup – Game failed to Launch – How to fix [Update 2023]

Baldur's Gate 3 Guides | August 2, 2023 | By

Baldur’s Gate 3 crashing or won’t launch – After a lot of delays, Baldur’s Gate III has finally been released on the PC or Windows Platform. Players were eagerly waiting for the launch ever since the trailer debuted early this year. If you are a fan of RPG games, then you should definitely give Baldur’s Gate 3 a try.

But as we all know, games these days don’t come without bugs and glitches. The same is the case with Baldur’s Gate 3. A lot of players have been complaining lately, that they are facing crashes after playing the game for a bit. While some couldn’t even get the game to launch the game via Steam. And this problem has nothing to do with their PC hardware. That is why we decided to put all the fixes recommended by the community in one place, so that players don’t have to check multiple sources for them.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – Crashing at Startup – Game failed to Launch – How to fix

How to fix the crashes and the launch issues

[Note : Every single fix mentioned in this article has been recommended either by a developer or by the community of Baldur’s Gate III]

Windows 10 64-bit is mandatory for Baldur’s Gate 3

The PC version of Baldur’s Gate 3 does not support any other OS other than Windows 10, that too the 64-bit version. So if you have a different OS installed then you are out of luck here. Neither this game will run on Windows 7, nor will it run on Windows 8.1 or Linux. I know this is not really a fix, but this is something everyone should know.

Whitelist Baldur’s Gate 3 on your Anti-Virus Software

If you go and look at the Steam discussions page of Baldur’s Gate 3, you will notice that a lot of people have posted about how their Anti-virus software is labeling the executable or the .exe file of the game as virus, as a result blocking it.

Anti-Virus software hooks very deep into user systems and can affect disk and network operations which can cause crashes in games. Some games also use copy protection technology that can appear as malicious software to an AV scanner, resulting in potential false-positive alerts.

Try disabling your Anti-Virus software temporarily and then run the game. It may also be necessary to add exceptions for Baldur’s Gate 3 in your Anti-virus configuration.

If you are using Windows Defender instead of a third-party AV software, then here is how to add Baldur’s Gate 3 on the exceptions list of Windows Defender:

  • Go to Windows 10 settings
  • Click on Update & Security
  • Select Windows Security from the left sidebar
  • Click on Virus & threat protection
  • Under Virus & threat protection click on Manage settings
  • Under Exclusions click on Add or remove exclusions
  • Click on Add an exclusion
  • Select File
  • Select the .exe or executable file of Baldur’s Gate 3, which in this case should be bg3.exe
  • Restart your PC

Verify the files of Baldur’s Gate 3

  • Open your Steam Library
  • Right-click on Baldur’s Gate 3
  • Click on Properties
  • Click on the Local Files tab
  • Select Verify Integrity of Game Files

Update graphics drivers

Though neither Nvidia nor AMD has released drivers specifically optimized for Baldur’s Gate 3, it is wise to update your graphics drivers to the latest versions to avoid crashes. Here are the links:

Fixes suggested by the community members of Baldur’s Gate 3

Hi everyone. Found a way to run the game without crashing Vulkan / DX11. Go to: steamapps / common / baldursgate3 / bin folder and run bg3.exe or bg3_dx11.exe as administrator.

I was having a problem where any time I pressed play, the launcher immediately crashed. After some tinkering, my friend and I found that the Microsoft redistributable files were missing from my system, specifically the 2015-2019 files. After redownloading them, the game launched immediately.

My game was crashing every time i opened it and i couldn’t figure out what was wrong, i had done all of suggested fixes.

*FIX*
Go into your event viewer and if there’s an error event with the source ESENT, go into your BG3 save file which can be found in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Larian Studios\Baldur’s Gate 3\
and delete all of the files in there. This fixed it for me, hope it helps you guys

Have fun

These are all the fixes we have at the moment for people for whom Baldur’s Gate 3 is crashing and won’t launch. We will be adding more soon.

So if you are facing multiple issues with the game at the moment, don’t worry, they would get fixed eventually.

If you think this guide has helped you, then let us know in the comment section below. Also, if you are facing problems that are not mentioned on this article, then also you can comment below. We will try to come out with a fix. Good luck!

That’s all folks!

Last Updated on August 2, 2023