Larian Studios has shared an update on Baldur’s Gate 3 coming to Xbox Series X|S, and it probably isn’t what Xbox owners want to hear.
Larian Studios’ director of publishing Michael Douse shared this message on Twitter:
“Hello friend! We’ve said many times in the past that the issue is getting split-screen working on the Series S, which is taking more time, but is in progress. This is a huge technical hurdle, but we are unable to release the game on the ecosystem without this feature.
Far from being exclusive, we have no exclusivity deal that prevents us from launching on Xbox. The issue is a technical hurdle. We cannot remove the split-screen feature because we are obliged to launch with feature parity, and so continue to try and make it work.
We have quite a few engineers working very hard to do what no other RPG of this scale has achieved: seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op on Series S. We hope to have an update by the end of the year.”
This message was in response to a prior Larian interview, where they claimed that the Xbox Series S was not holding back video games in the current console generation. We also reported on this statement yesterday.
However, based on Douse’s statement today, it sounds like they will not be able to launch Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X|S until the end of the year. In fact, it definitely sounds like Xbox Series X|S will have to wait until 2024 to get the game on their platform.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is going ahead with its planned Windows release this August 3, 2023, coming to Steam and GOG. It is dated for release on PlayStation 5 on September 6, 2023. There is also a MacOS version planned, but it has yet to be given a release date.
When you put this entire timetable in account, it does seem that Larian Studios means it about Baldur’s Gate 3 not having any platform exclusivity of any kind. In fact, they may be right in choosing to launch on PC first, as that is most likely where the lion’s share of their user base will be.
The other thing we can gleam from Larian’s statements about this whole thing is that they are confident, in spite of current issues, that they will eventually be able to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 intact with all its features, and at a high level of quality, to Xbox Series S as well as Xbox Series X. For those Xbox owners who are waiting on this game, you can take solace in the fact that Larian is willing to put their name on the line to get the game to you.
