So I have a modded version of Baldur's Gate 3 on my steam account that is not allowing me to play multiplayer with my friends. I went on to GOG and purchased the game again in an attempt to run an unmodded version so that I could play multiplayer with my friends. This worked until we closed the game. Apparently while we were playing all the game data was saved to the modded version of the game in my steam library. Now when I try to open the game in steam or GOG, it opens the modded steam version and I cannot find an unmodded version anywhere in the GOG or steam files. Has anyone experienced this or know what has happened and how to fix it? I want to keep my steam version and GOG versions completely separate from each other but my computer keeps merging them to the modded steam version of the game. HELP!!!!

If you run Linux you can have as many BG3 "profiles" (that includes settings, mods and saves) as you need, from a single base installation, by installing it using ./play.it.

If on the other hand you run Windows, I can not help you, sorry.

Looks like both versions use the same directory to store data, which usually is exactly what you want.

%LOCALAPPDATA%/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/

I'd say you have to rename the directory each time you want to play the different version, something like

%LOCALAPPDATA%/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3Modded/
%LOCALAPPDATA%/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3Unmodded/
and then rename the one you want to
%LOCALAPPDATA%/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/

Ugg that's ugly, i didn't consider that (in my response) Though two batch scripts to run which one and doing the renaming for you shouldn't be too difficult... Just gotta wonder how/where the mods are stored, which may change how the script is written.

Well, mine is only a wild guess since I don't own the game.

But if two installation use the same data, that's usually because they use the same data directory.

An Alternative to a renaming script would be to have two Windows users with separated user data.

Mhmm... A small price to pay making a new user account... unless you're using Windows 10 or something and it won't let you unless you use/login to a Microsoft account and other stupid stuff.

I'm already on 11 and still only use local accounts. There will always be loopholes for that, after all most of Microsofts customers are companies and they have their own authentification system and user domains.

This can be a tricky one, and I am guessing the DEVs weren't expecting someone to have two versions of the same game installed for the same user.

If it was me, I would write a script to both rename the folders and execute the game ... and hope no Registry entries also played a part.

To set that up, I would install one version first, then rename its App Data folder.
Then install the other version, making sure it was installed to a different game folder.

I would then create two shortcuts on the Desktop.
1. Baldur's Gate 3 (Steam)
2. Baldur's Gate 3 (GOG)

Those shortcuts would run a script or BAT file, that renames the App Data folder to the appropriate one, then executes the game.

P.S. You would want to incorporate some checking to ensure the wrong folder doesn't ever get renamed. I'd personally use a compiled AutoIt script, rather than a BAT file, to give me the most control for checking etc.

DOS batch file programming is a bit confusing. The most i've done is IF EXIST checks to run an ecm/unecm program for my dosbox games which saves like 50Mb per CD in the final 7z file.

But prepping the folder beforehand, then steps

1) rename folder to run
2) run game
3) rename folder separating out again

I did similarly ramdisk thread some years ago, mounting a compressed iso of a game, running the game, then unmounting after.

But we'll have to see if just a couple folder renames are enough to get away from it...

... well, just in case a few checks should be performed, after all the commands do actually change somethig on the drive. Mounting a RAM disk would not. If someone for example closes the batch file while the game is running, this could be a problem.

But I agree, people tend to underestimate batch. I have seen a complete UI with different colored sections written in batch, it was quite impressive. I'll never be at that level, but checking the existance of directories and stuff is a rather easy task and you don't really need to do more than that. IF EXIST is exactly what you need.

In the end it won't matter what script engine he choses, they all do their job, it all comes down to which one he's most familiar with.

Yep DOS can be confusing if you are not familiar enough with it, and it is also something many folk use far less often these days in most cases. If you do know what you are doing it can be quite quick and simple.

I wouldn't bother with step 3). As the idea is whatever shortcut you run, checks to see if a certain folder exists and acts accordingly.

For instance, if the Steam AppData folder was active, then the GOG AppData folder, renamed to such would exist.

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Baldur's Gate 3 (GOG)

If you ran the Baldur's Gate 3 (GOG) shortcut, then that folder would be detected, and it would know that the current active folder for the game, needed to be renamed first.

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Baldur's Gate 3
to
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Baldur's Gate 3 (Steam)

Then it would rename the following GOG folder.

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Baldur's Gate 3 (GOG)
to
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Baldur's Gate 3

If the correct folder is already active, for either shortcut, then nothing needs to be renamed.


If you used something like what I just outlined, then closing the BAT file wouldn't have any impact, wouldn't even need to be running still in fact.

edit: That's why I mentioned checks. If you don't then in bash it would move one directory into the other if the target directory already existed.

Yep, how well it all works would be down to the necessary checks and renaming model.

Agreed. Only problem is we need to know if that would actually deal with the issue. Course to do that just renaming the game folder out and leaving a blank, let the GoG version generate a new tree/data and see if that handles it. Once that's known, we'll work on a script.

Though if there's very little data, could also do something like 7zipping the folder down... nah, too complex for this job.

I'm not sure what you mean by blank?
For me there is no blank, as you always have two folders.in AppData.
One always being the original game name folder (GOG or Steam version).
The other being the same but with GOG or Steam added to the end of the folder name.
The script can determine whether a rename needs to occur or not, before executing the game.

Outside of that though, as I said earlier, that might not be enough, as one or more Registry entries etc might be involved.

I am also presuming that each variant backups up to its own cloud, and not a game specific one as dictated by the developer.