Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Lower City Load Crash

I had submitted a formal bug report on this issue with a lot of detail. I did hear back from a tech support person (very nice btw), but they gave me unfortunate news. Larian believes this particular bug is only due to the presence of mods and that non-modded games will not experience this problem. At least that's what they said. They then gave various instructions on how to remove mods.

Imagine my surprise as I don't even know 'how' to mod Baldur's Gate 3. (I am a PC user). But, because Larian is of the mind that this crash only occurs for modded games, it's unlikely it will ever get attention from a patching perspective unless they change their mind. So while I do not use mods personally and still get the crash, let me ask you @ledouze, do you use mods?

For reference:

The moment I cross out of Lower City to Wyrm's Crossing via the Basilisk Gate entrance, it loads fine. When I try to go back to the Lower City immediately after this, it crashes.
I can save and run around in the Lower City just fine, and reload saves just fine. This crash only occurs if I go to Wyrm's Crossing and then try to get back into the Lower City
I've tried various iterations of DX 11 and Vulkan
I've tried dismissing companions
I've tried finding dead people with more than 0hp (though in the Lower City that's a chore and some places are off limits like the Foundry that's now in ruins)
I've tried older saves (like way older) and the crash still occurs, whether or not I've fought Gortash or his guards
I've tried lowering graphics settings
I've tried reinstalling the game

In short, nothing works. But again, Larian believes this is a mod issue so it looks like I'll be unable to complete the game.

i found a reddit thread where someone explained his issue was from a "surviving" hellfire watcher with 2 hp from the steel foundry (before he exploded it). He had to go back, find it and kill it using telekinesis and it fixed his issue.

I had the same loading crash at 33% so i went back to my save before blowing it up as well, and lo and behold i found a 1 hp watcher that didnt fully die. Did TK and it fixed it.

Highly suggest and see if others can see if this fixes it.

Sucks because i have to redo Janneths quest, wyrmway and gortash, but i suppose its better than restarting further back

Thread link:https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/16u9o09/going_to_lower_city_after_wyrms_rock_crash/

Watcher from my playthrough with 1 HP: https://imgur.com/a/mfDweKe

@Vegor:

Please send them a link to this thread! I am running a completely vanilla, unmodded game and have had this issue. I've never installed mods or a mod loader of any kind. I've also sent them a detailed bug report and save file.

There are also PS5 users in this thread with this issue, who - very obviously - are not using mods.

@Silenthero009 et al,

Okay, based on what you said, I fortunately had a save right in the control room of the Foundry before the Titan fight, so I could check the two hellfire watchers behind me in the prior room, as well as the Titan + 3 up ahead after I destroyed them. In my first playthrough of this section, I had actually killed a watcher 'before' it had a chance to self-destruct. When I did this, it didn't fall over it just stood there. I couldn't target it with weapons anymore, but thought it was a visual bug as there are some here and there. I didn't at the time look at the life total. It could have been '2' or some such.

Anyhow, I went and did the fight again, and all four robots self-destructed. I immediately went to the Basilisk Gate and came back through and it 'WORKED!' So something about that Hellfire Watch robot was screwing it up as that's the only difference in before and after.

To all other folks out there, this does appear to be the glitch. Not necessarily the robots but rather an enemy that, after a battle, has >0 HP remaining. It's a pain in the rear but make sure you check all of the enemies after each fight for any that might not be zero hp but dead. As for Larian, once they pull their head out of the sand on this one, they will need to add a short bit of code that basically triggers as follows:

What is creature status?
Alive - Continue actions in initiative list
Dead - Change hp total to 0 (in addition to whatever else goes on behind the curtain)

I'll send this as a follow-up bug report for what it's worth. But again, check the dead. It's a lot less time consuming than losing hours and hours having to replay sections. I'll provide another update after I beat Gortash, just to confirm that doesn't compound the bug in some way. However it is already working when before it did not, so I'm confident this issue got nipped. Stay tuned.

**Update: Post Gortash Battle

Houston, we have lift off! Even after the fight, I was able to cross from Wyrm's Rock Fortress back into the Lower City. Now, there is still the massive, MASSIVE load time that occurs anytime you go from a different region back into the Lower City (whether it's Wyrm's Crossing or the Iron Throne), but if you leave it be while the little wheel is spinning, all is well. So yes, it appears for me the culprit was a Hellfire Watcher that had some HP left after it was destroyed but I didn't know it.

@Mods, please don't chastise me for not putting spoiler blanks on here. This issue is plaguing thousands of players and I wanted to get straight to the point with it.

Again, check anything you put down, animal, mineral or vegetable. Make sure it's 0 hp. If it isn't and you can't throw it in a pit or some such, pick it up and put it in your camp box and leave it there. My issue was specifically a steel watcher, but it can be absolutely anything. Until the glitch is fixed.

I hadnt done steel foundry yet when this happened to me. Mine started immediately after patch 3

Wanted to add onto this just to make sure this thread stays active, suffering the same bug but a lot earlier into the game..

After finishing up the Creche I decided to go back to Act 1 to unload some of the spare items I had because of no vendors.

Game began to start crashing. Can not go to any part in Act 1 without the game crashing right now. I can progress forward, which is fine for me but it's not exactly great for those who are stuck with a limited amount of saves.

As it has been suggested right now, check your dead.. Including animals or anything, if you can't find a way to kill them, pick up the dead body and put it into the chest in your camp. Apparently things don't load in your camp chest.

Hopefully this gets fixed soon but it goes without saying, make sure you're submitting your bug reports.

*EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION* No mods being used in my current playthrough or installed onto my game

The fact that I submitted my bug report that states I'm on PlayStation 5 before said dev said it was caused by mods is rather frustrating. I don't think they are really reading the reports they get very well.

Well out of desperation and/or curiosity I looked and found a save right before the final battle to disable the iron watch. Redoing that battle for whatever reason unborked my situation so in theory I should be able to finish the game now. here's hoping...

@LeeM From what I understand, Larian does not read the forums for bug stuff. If you confirm it works, do as I did please and submit a report. For every one of us on these forums there's 20 or so folks who've never even visited the forums who have the same issue.

Aight, made an account just to thank you guys. You people fixed the issue for me ! Super cool team effort guys from all of you in the discussion; thanks me for letting me play the game.

Anyways, i confirm that ITS NOT JUST THE HELLFIRE WATCHERS!

Personally for me it was a 7 HP Body in the Blushing Mermaid basement. and it was hidden was in the BLOODY WATER. Thanks god I found it and reduced it to 0 HP with an AoE spell. Not sure if the cursed mask interaction that those guys wear is what was causing it.

Will keep you posted if the crash comes back at some point but it seems that I can travel freely back and forth from Lower City now, which I absolutely couldn't before.


As for Larian well... BG3 is for sure one of the best games I have ever played but .. and it hurts me to say that seriously given how much I love the game... an unadressed bug this big (literally making it 100% impossible to finish the game) is a serious issue for a product sold to over 5 mln customers.

GOTY? Not so sure anymore.

By the way, there are a ton of reddit posts out there (at least 10 I would say) with the same exact issue but I can't link to them the solution sadly since i don't even have an account (has to be at least 7 days old I think ?).

Would be very cool if some of you guys did tho! It's MUCH easier to end up on one of those rather than this forum discussion, at least in my experience.

A few copy paste replies sending a link to this discussion could help dozens of people (if not hundreds considering that the people making/ replying to posts are a minimal fraction).

Cheers guys

Hello friends,

unfortunately I do also have the same problem. Playing on PS5. I have never done the steel factory so a „undead“ watcher with 1 hp shouldn’t be my problem. My question is: how the f*** should I find the 1 hp dead body? Could be anywhere in lower city right?

Try looking in the Blushing Mermaid basement, thats where it was for me and another guy I think

Also not done that quest yet. It’s also not those fish creatures for me. So frustrating

Alternatively, if you are lucky and have a few backup saves ready, try loading them one by one and traveling back and forth from lower city until you find one that works. Once u have done this, check all the fights you had in between that save, and the next save that doesn't work. Should reduce the "undead" body search area considerably... Try to think of it as a murder investigation sidequest in order not to break your keyboard... XD

Otherwise, if you really can't find the "undead" HP positive body just start playing from that last working saved game that you have (really frustrating I know). And obviously always check body HP after every fight.

Yeah, it was one of those guys for me as well. Interesting. It feels like it's only happening in certain fights. I wonder what they have in common? If we figure that out we can let Larian know that info as well...

I think it can happen in fights where the NPCs have some kind of weird "death" mechanic.

Like the guys in the Mermaid basement are somehow connected to the mask (if you knock them out and remove the mask they still die "because of the spell". So my guess is that this weird death interaction somehow bugged its HP. Maybe my Mirmidon AoE heal actually healed the corpse? Idk).

The watchers on the other hand have the self- explosion thing. Thats what probably leads to these unintended "undead" corpses.

This being said i'll always double check corpses HP from now on..

Did this for ya!

I would like to bring some funny light to this discussion.

I've noticed since picking up all the dead to avoid said bug, my stash became a little.. Lets say contaminated

https://imgur.com/a/QUvstsR

Maybe it's just me, but dead bodies and food being together is not exactly what I would like to call.. Hygienic

Bhaal encourages you to store your murder victims and consumables in separate labelled containers. Please deposit any unidentified body parts in the barrel labelled "viscera".