Is Baldur’s Gate 3 coming to Xbox Series X|S?
With Baldur’s Gate 3 now officially released in full on PC, many are wondering if, or when, the game will also be coming to consoles. Larian Studios has already confirmed the game will arrive on PS5 in a month’s time on September 6. The reason for the short delay is that Larian is working to get the game running at a smooth 60 frames-per-second on PlayStation 5. But what about Xbox?
Is Baldur’s Gate 3 coming to Xbox Series X|S?
Unfortunately, the prospect for Baldur’s Gate 3 coming to Xbox Series X|S is a bit more murky. Larian Studios hasn’t yet officially announced an Xbox version of the game, but that’s not because of any sort of exclusivity deal. In fact, Larian has actually been working on an Xbox version for some time now. However, they are running into “some technical issues – particularly with split-screen co-op.”
A couple of months ago, the studio noted they weren’t yet confident enough to announce an Xbox version of the game. “We don’t like announcing anything until we’re ready, because we don’t want to get peoples hopes up until we’re sure we can deliver,” the studio stated.
It seems that the issue has more to do with getting split-screen co-op running on the Series S. Michael Douse, director of publishing, took to Twitter as recently as July 30th to further explain the technical hurdle.
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.
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) July 31, 2023
Douse also explained that it’s not as easy as simply removing the split-screen feature of the game because “we are obliged to launch with feature parity.” In other words, they can’t release the game with split-screen on one platform and not on the other.
As of right now, there’s no word if or when Baldur’s Gate 3 will come to Xbox platforms. The studio does have engineers working on the issue, but they don’t expect to have an update until the end of this year. So for now, it seems the earliest you’ll be able to play Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X is in 2024.