Larian Studios once again addressed the Xbox version of its upcoming RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, stressing that while it’s still a work in progress, the developer may eventually have to make “concessions” in order to release on the platform.
Larian’s struggles with Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox first came to light in February, when — amid fan concerns that the game was a PlayStation console exclusive — the studio confirmed it was working on an Xbox version but ran into some technical issues — particularly with split-screen co-op. .
In a statement provided to Digital Foundry shortly after, Larian explained that his decision not to officially announce an Xbox version was more specifically due to issues he was having with “split screen co-op to work to the same standard on both Xbox Series X and X”. And now, on scope Interview with IGNStudio founder and creative director Swen Vincke shared more.
For starters, Vincke contends that Larian’s struggles relate to Microsoft’s policy that games must have feature parity across the Xbox Series X and S, which means the Xbox version can’t ship until the co-ops are improved enough to reach at least an acceptable quality bar. – Powered S Series – A challenge due to Baldur’s Gate 3’s split screen requirements.
Fink explained, “You’re very free in what you do, much freer than people expect. That means you can get to a really big city that’s a lot more dense than people expect. You can do all kinds of crazy things, so it takes a lot of optimization. On certain platforms, We are faster than other platforms.”
He added, “It’s not that we planned this. We wanted to have a simultaneous release… There are limitations we have to overcome, so we’re just working on them. Some take longer.”
A potential solution — to remove collaboration from an Xbox version entirely to secure a release on the platform — appears to be one Larian is keen to avoid, but Fink acknowledged that the studio may eventually have to make some “concessions” to get an Xbox version, but he refrained from saying What might those be. He added, “We try to be very constrained in our compromises that we have to make. That’s one of the reasons we take more time as well.”
“It’s not exclusive,” Fink reiterated. You will be able to run it [on Xbox]. It’s just a matter of patience. It really is a matter of time. And how long has the studio been talking? The ambition, Fink says, is to get Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox “ready for this year.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 for PC is now set to release on August 3rd, about a month earlier than planned as it rambles in the way of a certain space game from Bethesda. The release of the PlayStation 5 version will take place a little later, on September 6th.
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