Following days of speculation, Larian Studios has just confirmed on Twitter (X) that the Xbox Series S|X launch of Baldur's Gate 3 is on track to happen at some point in December. The release date will be announced at Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards event, which takes place on Thursday 7th.
The game may be shadowdropped right after the announcement as that's become a major phenomenon in the past few years, though that's just speculation on our part.
The Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3 was kind of a mystery for a while. When Larian Studios announced the cRPG's release date, it did so for PC and PlayStation 5. At first, users were disappointed in what seemed like a broken promise, as Larian had previously said it wouldn't sign any exclusive deal for this game.
Shortly afterward, Larian clarified the reason for the delay of this version had nothing to do with exclusivity and was purely technical instead. Specifically, the studio couldn't make the seamless split-screen co-op feature work on the Xbox Series S, the less powerful console of the family.
Larian maintained that was a core feature of Baldur's Gate 3 and as such, the game could not be shipped without it. Due to the so-called parity clause enforced by Microsoft, though, that also cut off the Xbox Series X from getting the game.
However, after a meeting with Phil Spencer at Gamescom, Larian came back with the happy news that it was allowed to ship Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox without split-screen co-op working on the Series S. The developer also promised it would launch the game on Microsoft's consoles before the end of the year. It looks like they've managed to make good on that, allowing roleplaying game fans a great early Christmas present.
In other BG3 news, Game Director Swen Vincke is already teasing the studio's next big project as something that will push boundaries on the heels of the enormous success obtained by Baldur's Gate 3.
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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