Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on Xbox Series X|S.
Larian Studios tweeted out a link to the Xbox Store listing. Note that it is not part of Game Pass.
This is the culmination of a months long journey, where the game’s rise to unanimous critical acclaim, was happening alongside Xbox owners questioning where the action RPG was on their platform.
After some confusion over potential console exclusivity, Larian Studios carefully explained that the reason they couldn’t release the Xbox Series X|S version of the game, was they were still working on getting the split screen cooperative mode performing optimally on the Xbox Series S.
This had been weaponized by console loyal fans into the narrative that the Xbox Series S was holding game development back in this console generation. This was a claim that was surprisingly supported by some game developers, but it should be noted that most developers do not support this claim.
Larian obviously did not intend to be caught in the middle of console wars. In fact, as PlayStation 5 owners found out, while they got Baldur’s Gate 3 first, the co-op multiplayer mode was actually not performing all that well for them either.
Microsoft sent some of their Xbox internal devs to work with Larian, and Phil apparently talked to Larian’s heads themselves, about trying to ensure that they could get Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Xbox before the year was over. And so, Larian actually made that commitment with the public.
And then came the breakthrough. Just last month, Larian head Swen Vincke shared the technical update that they were finally able to figure out the programming necessary to get the co-op multiplayer running on the Xbox Series S at an acceptable framerate. To be more specific, Larian figured out how to work with the RAM and VRAM loads of the system.
And then Vincke said the thing to get them out of the console war conversation completely. He said that Larian would use what they learned to make Baldur’s Gate 3 work better on all the platforms it was on. And with that, he actually turned the conversation around, to make it so that working on Xbox Series S would make games better for everyone.
Today, Baldur’s Gate 3 is The Game Awards’ 2023 Game of The Year, as well as Best RPG. It is on this esteemed position that the game is finally available for Xbox players as well.
