Baldur’s Gate 3 players on Steam Deck just got a big upgrade. The game now runs natively on Valve’s handheld, which improves performance and stability even further. What makes the story even cooler is how it started: one Larian engineer wanted the Deck experience to feel better, so they began working on it after hours. That personal project eventually grew into an official update for everyone.
What Changes for Steam Deck Players
Running natively means less performance overhead, shorter load times, and lower CPU usage. For a handheld, that can make a big difference in how good the game feels. Besides that, the update also introduces a few practical changes:
- Save files now live in a different location, but Steam Cloud should keep them synced if you have it enabled.
- Mods will automatically install or reinstall when you log in. If not, you might need to move them manually.
- Fallback option: if you run into issues, you can still swap back to the Proton version.
- Bug fixes: the patch also cleared up a number of problems, like one fight where a boss would regain health if you reloaded mid-combat.
Why This Is a Big Deal
For many players, Proton already did the job well enough, but native builds cut down extra processing and make the experience more reliable. It is the kind of upgrade that really shows on a system like the Deck.
On top of that, it is also a nice reminder that passion projects can change a game in big ways. What started as one developer tinkering after hours has now become an update that benefits the entire community.
The news was first spotted by PC Gamer, who covered the story in detail.
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