Recently, Larian Studios released their RPG, Baldur's Gate 3, on PC. It has gone on to be a massive critical and commercial success. For a while, it seemed the game would only be getting a console release on PS5. But recently, Larian has confirmed a Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox release is happening, but with some differences between platforms.
The Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Announcement
The news of the Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox release came from one of Larian's developers, Sven Vincke. Vincke tweeted that he and his team held a meeting with Microsoft's own Phil Spencer and found a solution for a Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox release.
According to Vincke, all of the improvements for the console versions of the game will be present, which includes cross-save progression between Steam and your Xbox account. The only feature that will not be on par is splitscreen co-op. The Xbox Series X will have this feature, whereas the Xbox Series S will not.
For those not aware, if developers want to release a game on Microsoft's current generation of Xbox, that title must be playable not just on Xbox Series X but the Xbox Series S as well with complete feature parity. This is a challenge since the Xbox Series S hardware isn't as powerful as the Series X.
Certain developers have even asked Microsoft to drop Xbox Series S requirements, referring to developing for the machine as "an albatross around the neck of production," when designing for the platform.
With Vincke's announcement, the Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox release will mark the first time that an Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S release will not be comparable. With high-profile videogame development becoming more hardware-intensive each year, it may not be the last.
The Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox platform release will be sometime this year.
