Many Baldur’s Gate 3 gamers have posted on forums regarding a situation where co-op characters are permanently locked to the host’s party. This means that they cannot interact with the characters when they are not online, and they cannot have AI companions either. It is unclear whether this is a bug or intended, but the co-op characters are now part of the host’s campaign save file forever. We have compiled information about this potential Baldur’s Gate 3 bug, just in case it happens to you.
What can you do if you can’t remove your friend’s characters in Baldur’s Gate 3?
Image: PC Invasion
When a friend joins your friend’s game in the middle of a campaign, they must create a custom character. However, once your friend leaves the game, the custom character will remain in the party and cannot be removed… EVER. This is a huge issue because you cannot finish the main quests without having the characters in your party, and you can never invite AI companions to your party again. Unfortunately, this means co-op characters are being locked to the host’s party forever.
In addition, if someone joins your campaign as a companion, they are locked into your party just like a custom character. This means that you cannot interact with them to bench them later. Additionally, joining a session in progress as a companion is impossible – even if they are benched in the camp. You can only select a companion from a new multiplayer game, so loading a single-player save won’t work.
Related: How to romance all companions in Baldur’s Gate 3
This issue also affects the origin characters, like Astarion. If your friends choose any of the origin characters when starting a new campaign, they will be locked to the party. You won’t be able to interact with them in camp if you’re not playing in multiplayer mode, and you won’t be able to remove them from the party. They will remain with the party permanently.
Unfortunately, if this happens to you, you have two options to “fix” the issue. The first option is restarting your campaign and beginning it as a solo character again. However, some players had luck loading a quick save or manual save before their friends joined their game, which reverted their game to a solo campaign.
Image: PC Invasion
This potential bug is becoming a weapon for nefarious players to grieve other players. You must ensure your Online Visibility is set to Closed, Invitation Only, or Friends Only to prevent unwanted people from joining your game and intentionally causing this issue. You can set this option in the in-game settings menu. Once there, navigate to the Gameplay tab, then the Default Online Settings section.
Author’s Note: I wrote this guide while playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam Deck.
