Yesterday, Larian Studios announced Baldur III’s Gate will arrive on PS5 on the same day as the PC version Exit Early Access. It looked like an exclusivity deal might keep it off Xbox, but the developers say that’s not the case. So what’s the problem? Making the co-op RPG split-screen action work on the weaker Xbox Series S.
Larian revealed the August 31 release date for the PS5 console port in a new trailer during Sony’s latest State of Play which, among other things, featured actor JK Simmons voicing the newly revealed villain General Ketheric Thorm. It’s normal for teases pushed by Sony to leave out competitors’ platforms, but when fans didn’t see an Xbox release date on Larian’s website either, they started to wonder.
today the studio clarified what is happeningstating that an Xbox version will arrive if and when Larian can make split-screen gameplay work on both Series S and Series X:
We’re seeing a lot of varying interpretations of what that means, so we wanted to clarify more. We had an Xbox version of Baldur III’s Gate been in development for some time. We ran into some technical issues in the development of the Xbox port that kept us from feeling 100% confident in announcing it until we were sure we found the right solutions – specifically, we couldn’t get the split-screen co-op to work with the same pattern on Xbox Series X and S, which is a requirement for us to ship.
There is no platform exclusivity that prevents us from launching BG3 on the day and date of the Xbox, if this is a technical possibility. If and when we announce other platforms, we want to make sure each release lives up to our standards and expectations.
It’s an especially interesting wrinkle considering gamers have long speculated about the tradeoffs and challenges involved in developing games for the PS5 and Xbox Series X with similar specs that must also accommodate the less powerful Series S. an especially taxing resource and it was dropped noticeably from infinity halo last year while 343 Industries tried to salvage the online shooter’s live service ambitions.
Baldur III’s GateMinimum PC specs already call for a minimum Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card, with a recommended GeForce RTX 2060. While it’s not likely to push PC gamers’ hardware the way recent blockbusters like the dead space redo or The Callisto protocol has, it’s still more than your average isometric RPG fan probably has on hand. The console port could be a huge boon for those who don’t already have a high-end gaming PC or the funds to upgrade. That said, for now it looks like the $250 Series S might be holding it back.