If you’re getting the Baldur’s Gate 3 save incompatible version error, you’re not alone. A recent hotfix that Larian pushed accidentally broke the game – and created more than a few problems, including this save error. Figuring out the cause is pretty easy, but the solution is likely not something you’re going to want to hear, at least until the patch is fixed.
BG3 Incompatible save version error cause
BG3 Hotfix 4, which Larian released on Aug. 16, 2023, on PC is the error’s cause. Larian rolled the fix back, so if you updated your version of the game, any save file that was created while Hotfix 4 was active is now invalid.
If you play offline or haven’t updated the game since downloading Hotfix 4, you can continue playing with no issue. Just make sure you don’t update again until Hotfix 4 is back in the wild. At the time of publication, there’s no firm timeframe for when that might be.
BG3 Incompatible save version error fix
There’s only one fix for the problem that we’re aware of: reloading a file that you made before Hotfix 4 released. That’s not a great solution if you played a lot while the patch was installed, but it is, unfortunately, the only immediate way around the problem.
The alternative is not playing BG3 again until Hotfix 4 rolls back out. Larian has released these small patches regularly since the game launched, so while this is the first one that came with serious problems, it likely won’t be too long before it’s back out again.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
