The award-winning cRPG Baldur's Gate 3 couldn't possibly run on the original Nintendo Switch, as evidenced by a test made with a modded console that featured twice the amount of RAM (8GB instead of 4GB), with the game still bringing this 'Switch on steroids' on its knees.
However, the Nintendo Switch 2 is a completely different beast. In some regards, it is even superior to the Xbox Series S, as Studio Wildcard's Lead Programmer just told me in an interview, and the Xbox Series S does run the game, albeit not very well. Additionally, there have been successful Switch ports of computationally intensive games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, to name a few, and the Steam Deck native version of BG3 has also made great strides. Furthermore, last year, insider Nate the Hate had shared that he heard Baldur's Gate 3 might indeed be coming to the new Nintendo console.
All in all, there was good reason to believe this version would arrive at some point. However, during today's Reddit AMA, Larian CEO Swen Vincke commented on the topic with a negative response:
We would have loved to, but it wasn't our decision to make.
That sounded like Vincke hinting it might be due to issues with IP holder Wizards of the Coast. Larian famously decided to pivot away from Baldur's Gate 3 DLC and a sequel to make something else (which we recently learned is a new Divinity game), and fans have long suspected that there was a fracture between the two companies, although Larian publicly said their decision had nothing to do with the company.
In the ResetEra thread that picked up Vincke's Reddit comment, Nate the Hate quickly replied:
From what I was told last year… It's a complicated situation and involved their relationship with WotC.
At this point, the question is whether Wizards of the Coast might be looking for someone else to port their massively successful game. Last month, it was announced that Baldur's Gate 3 had surpassed 20 million copies sold, a nearly unthinkable figure for a cRPG before Larian's game. It's hard to imagine it wouldn't sell at least a few more million units on the rapidly growing Switch 2 installed base.
We've reached out to Wizards of the Coast, asking for a comment, and will update this story if and when we receive it. Nintendo Switch 2 users who may be into Larian games can, however, play Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition in the meantime, and the studio's Technical Director just said in the Reddit AMA that they will consider a port of the future Divinity game.
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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