Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Severe freezing on PS5 in couch co-op

My husband and I have been waiting for this game for years to come out for the console, so we could play it together. We played DOS2 on PS4 and we loved it beyond words. Knowing that we can safely expect the story and mechanics of the highest quality from Larian, we were so excited, and we even bought the Deluxe edition.

And then we realized that we can't play BG3 in couch co-op split screen. The game is freezing so much that it destroys any joy we're getting from it.

We have started our playthrough as soon as it came out for PS5, in Early Access (because Deluxe), and we've been on that playthrough through all the patches so far... but there was no noticeable improvement. It was only getting worse.

Our console functions normally with all other games, it's clean and maintained, so the problem is not there. We're even playing in the Performance mode. We're near the end of Act 1 and that's where we were finally forced to stop, because the game froze twice to the point it froze the console. There's a shopping list of instances where the game regularly freezes for approx 5 seconds, but the gist of it is that we can't do things with our respective characters at the same time without the game choking on our actions. I've noticed that the freezes are getting longer and more frequent the further we progress in the game.

Other notable issues beside freezing:
- The player in combat will sometimes be completely immobile. Not by spell or effect, they just won't move or be able to target anyone. This state persists until the combat ends.
- Voice of the characters from one player's dialogue can sometimes become inaudible if the other player is doing any activity in the meantime (besides walking around).
- Fast travel is impossible to accomplish for both players at the same time.
- Inventory descriptions will often disappear if both players are managing their inventory at the same time.
- When the freeze/lag happens, players' actions often reset. For example, if I was marking multiple items in my inventory, and my husband is performing some action at that time, all the items I've been selecting will deselect. If I'm trying to loot a container and my husband is also looting something else on his end, our actions cannot happen at the same time - either his or my action will reset/nullify.
- The chest for the second player always resets and it's never the same one upon a game load. There was a similar issue in DOS2 as well.
- Upon game load, the second player's follower will load as detached from the party and only the main player can control them. Since I am the main player, this forces me to re-attach the follower and then tell them to leave my party, and then my husband has to go to the Camp to recruit this follower again.
- Followers will sometimes stop following. They'll just... stop. And they refuse to move until the player switches to them, and sometimes this needs to be repeated several times to make them move again.
- This is more of a question than an issue (although it is an issue): Why can't one player talk to the other player's follower?? Our followers can converse with each other while we're exploring the world, but we can't talk to each other's followers. It's ridiculous.


I understand there aren't many people who play in couch co-op, but for us it's essential. We're basically heartbroken right now. We've become attached to the story, we love the characters, the mechanics are dear and familiar... and performance is appalling. Look, we understand that people are hungry for super-fancy visuals, but we're ready to accept reductions in visual quality if only to have a smoother playthrough.

We have the same experience as you. Wife and I are staring at a 30s freeze during almost ever interaction now. We just finished up 95% of the content in Act 1 and it’s unplayable.

Bump for vis

I second everything on your list and have added a few more notes to many other threads but will include, again, the need for a shared screen in combat. Having a forced split mid combat is very buggy; I would happily forego the same turn initiative to gain a single screen.



Menu ==> Mutiplayer ==> assign their NPC to them in that screen, then they can use the group up/split function properly. Is it perfect? No, but it damn sure will save you time instead of that very painful kick out, return to camp mode you're using! hope that helps!

Yup, this has been raised and discussed on another thread here, as well as on a reddit page devoted to the subject. I hope they can address this soon, before the clamour of success from the single-player/non-PS5 reception drowns us out and leaves us merely wishing for what might have been :')

Thank you! I had no idea we had to fiddle with Multiplayer options since we're on split screen couch co-op - I thought that field is reserved for online co-op.

But anyway, we're not playing right now because, well, WE CAN'T. It feels so bad, having this awesome game at our disposal and being unable to play it, because it won't let us do it together.

No problem, and my pleasure. We ran into the same issue and discovered the multiplayer tab. I feel you on the similar frustration as DOS2 is one of the great couch co-op experiences I have played, and is one of my favorite video game memories with my girlfriend and we are very sad that we just don't feel like we're experiencing the same magic as everyone else, specifically after waiting to play it ON couch-cop intentionally.

Created an account to add to this as well.
My wife and I bought this game, specifically on PS5, to play the game together as we greatly enjoyed DOS and DOS2.
We now show 60 hours on our save file. Got to some point in Act 2. When it got to the point where I was verbally cursing the game more than we were playing, it only made sense to stop playing until the issue is fixed. If only it were possible to refund a game after struggle-bussing your way through 60 hours of it...
This needs to get addressed.

Intentionally bumping so that there as much visibility on this topic as possible.

So I tried bumping this issue on Reddit too, and... they downvote-bombed my inquiry:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I don't know what is happening anymore.

It's people who are so fanatical about the games single player mode and have no interest in the local coop on ps5 acting as white Knights for Larian. I also made a post on Reddit a while ago and it received very little attention considering the size of the subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/FFDgOtdHx8

But... Larian doesn't even need "White Knights", their work speaks for themselves, their games are awesome! I wasn't even saying anything bad about them, just asking for more transparency. Compared to the bland crap that other much bigger developers are dishing out these days, their work is a balm for the soul.
My initial post in this thread only contained the freezing issue, I've added all the other bugs later only to increase their visibility - but honestly, if they fix ONLY the freezing, I'll be ecstatic. Like, I'm good. I'm sure they'll eventually address everything, but there's no need to hurry - as long as the game is actually playable.

Experiencing every single one of the issues you’ve outlined here as well. Looking forward to fixes or at least communication/acknowledgement from the studio on these.

How unfortunate, with my girlfriend we take 2 weeks of start of the month just to play the game . Is the problem still occurs?

After Patch 3 problem has been solved completely. Me and my wife started enjoying the game again