Baldur’s Gate 3 will be coming to Xbox this year, Larian confirmed after meeting with Xbox boss Phil Spencer at Gamescom.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has absolutely slayed so far, managing to become the most reviewed game of the year and attracting millions of players. It’s also due to launch on PlayStation in about a week, which will surely mean a new stream of players.
However, the Xbox release was something of a stumbling block. Larian couldn’t confirm when Baldur’s Gate 3 will be coming to Microsoft consoles because they couldn’t get split-screen co-op to work on Xbox Series S. According to Microsoft’s publishing rules, games must have feature parity between Series S and Series X. causing Larian to fail to release the game.
However, that all changed at Gamescom.
“Very happy to confirm this after the meeting [Phil Spencer] yesterday we found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox players later this year, something we’ve been working on for quite some time,” Larian’s Vinke said on X, formerly Twitter.
“All improvements will be available, with split-screen co-op on Series X. Series S will not have split-screen co-op, but will also include cross-save between Steam and Xbox Series.”
All of the enhancements will be present, with split-screen Coop on the Series X. Series S will not have split-screen Coop, but will also include cross-save between Steam and the Xbox Series.
— Sven Winke @where? (@LarAtLarian) August 24, 2023
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This news could be an important turning point. Baldur’s Gate 3 has been a wild success, so naturally Microsoft wants to get it on their console, but now that an exception has been made to the rule, other studios that struggled with the development of the S-series and X-series are wondering if they’ll be able to get the that’s right.
On the other hand, could Microsoft consider changing its rules to give developers more freedom to launch their games on both consoles?
Whatever happens, the S Series has become a point of discussion among developers, many of whom argue that the cheaper machine is actually holding developers back.