There was a fairly big ruckus when the Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3 was nowhere to be seen. Fans speculated Sony might have paid for an exclusivity deal, despite Larian promising early on there would be no exclusives.
However, the team quickly clarified the real reason for the missing Xbox version. The culprit is the Xbox Series S console, where delivering the split-screen co-op feature is proving to be extremely challenging. As you know, Microsoft demands feature parity between Xbox Series S and X, which means the Xbox Series X is now being held back from getting Baldur's Gate 3 until this problem is fixed.
There's no guarantee it'll ever be. After all, even 343 Industries decided to remove the previously announced split-screen co-op feature from Halo Infinite (though the community has discovered a workaround for that). Still, Larian is adamant this is a key feature, as confirmed a few weeks ago by CEO Swen Vincke.
A few hours ago, Larian's Director of Publishing Michael Douse provided an update on the optimization work, hinting that Baldur's Gate 3 won't be released on Xbox before 2024 at the earliest.
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.
Baldur's Gate 3 is launching this Thursday on PC after nearly three years on Steam Early Access. The PS5 version will be available starting on September 6th. As confirmed by Larian in the freshly published exclusive interview with Wccftech, the two versions will feature cross-save, while cross-play for co-op play will be explored after launch.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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