How to play Baldur's Gate 3 cross-play with friends

The Baldur's Gate 3 cross-play feature that was added as part of Patch 8 is now live, allowing players to join friends and collaborate on different consoles and platforms as part of the same party, no matter whether you're on PS5, Xbox, or PC. It means that team-ups and collaborations between friends in BG3 can be more extensive than ever, though setting this system up could use some better explaining than what's provided in the game.

The appeal of playing with friends and battling Mind Flayers as a team in Baldur's Gate 3 hasn't lost its lustre even now, so I'll lay out how to play with friends in BG3 on different platforms and consoles with the cross-play system accordingly, so you don't have to travel your journey alone.

How to play BG3 cross-play with friends

Baldur's Gate 3 cross-play allows you to play multiplayer with friends on other platforms and consoles when you do the following:

Make sure you're logged in with a Larian Account on your copy of BG3
Select "Multiplayer" on the main menu after opening the game, and tab across to "Cross-play".
Select the option to "Enable Cross-Play".
From here you can create or join multiplayer games. However, you need to enter the Larian Account Username of friends rather than their PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam account name.
If entered right, you should then be able to connect with them as normal in Baldur's Gate 3 multiplayer.

Cross-Play across platforms also applies to progression, meaning that if you log into your Larian Account on another platform copy of Baldur's Gate 3, you should be able to sync and download your save data to keep playing accordingly.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.