After years in early access only on PC, Baldur’s Gate 3 is finally here in its final state. This CRPG has the internet buzzing about just how long and varied the experience can be. What’s even better is that it can be played in co-op, though with limited cross-platform features. Those looking at the game may notice that there is only ever mention of a PC and PlayStation 5 version, which obviously raises the question about Xbox consoles. Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t have any exclusivity deal with PlayStation, so why isn’t it on Xbox, and will it ever be?
Will Baldur’s Gate 3 come to Xbox?
The latest update from Larian states that it will be able to release Baldur’s Gate 3 on Series X and S sometime before the end of 2023, but with the S version not having split-screen coop.
Long before launch, Larian stated that it intended to release Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox consoles alongside the PC and PS5 releases, but ran into a technical hurdle that it wasn’t confident it could resolve. That issue was that the game couldn’t run in split-screen mode on the weaker Series S. Because Xbox requires games to be able to run on the S as well as the X, that meant that the team had no choice but to delay the release on that platform.
Larian’s director of publishing has commented many times on the matter, most recently just ahead of Baldur’s Gate 3‘s PC release. “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,” said Michael Douse. “This is a huge technical hurdle, but we are unable to release the game on the ecosystem without this feature.”
He also put to bed any doubts about it being related to secret exclusivity deals stating, “Far from being exclusive, we have no exclusivity deal that prevents us from launching on Xbox,” Douse said. “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.” They ended by stating “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.”
