Baldur's Gate 3's early access has been playable on Steam Deck for some time, but players have reported mixed results. While it sounds like it gets the job done, there have been complaints about low framerates, even with graphical settings turned down.
However, this could be set to improve with the game's upcoming PC launch. While on a long plane trip, Larian's director of publishing shares that he could play Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam Deck, describing the quality as "absolutely wild". This is despite Larian previously suggesting that it won't be Deck Verified by launch, even if it is something that it's actively working towards.
"Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam Deck is absolutely wild. The quality of models etc really holds up in cinematics. Can’t wait for you to try it," says Michael Douse, Larian's head of publishing.
While this isn't an official confirmation, we can safely assume that this means improvements have been made to how Baldur's Gate 3 runs on Steam Deck ahead of the PC launch on August 3. It might not be actual Verification, but it's something.
As for the state of Baldur's Gate 3's Deck Verification, Swen Vincke recently commented on this in an interview (spotted by Reddit user Shackleberry).
"We're working on it," says Vincke, responding to a viewer's question on the state of the game on Deck. "We're trying to get it there. It might not be there on the day of release but it's not very far off."
It won't be a huge surprise if it isn't running perfectly on the Deck on launch day. August 3 wasn't even supposed to be the release date, as it was originally intended to launch on August 31, alongside its PS5 release. This date was reportedly moved forward by almost a month to avoid clashing with Starfield - another huge RPG that's going to take up all of our time. On the other hand, the PS5 port has been pushed back to September 6, to ensure it can run at 60fps from day one.
Getting ready to launch the game much earlier isn't all that's keeping Larian busy right now. While the studio wants Baldur's Gate 3 to release on Xbox at some point, the team has encountered an issue during development. More specifically, it has to make sure both Series X and S retain similar features, and the weaker console is said to struggle while running local multiplayer. Unable to get rid of the feature on Series S alone, Larian will instead have to get it working on both platforms before it can release on Xbox. We still don't know when that will be.