Baldur's Gate III is coming to Xbox this year after a Series S compromise

Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 became a massive hit following its full launch in early August. With over 5 million downloads, the long-awaited sequel to BioWare's classic Dungeons & Dragons-inspired CRPG has achieved crossover success, putting the sub-genre into the spotlight for its open-ended approach to storytelling and player choice.

When Larian Studios’ role-playing smash hit Baldur’s Gate 3 launched, it escaped no one’s attention how up for it most party companions in the game were. For once, the term “romance options” really was the euphemism it often sounds like. These people were horny, and they seemed less interested in getting to know you than in… well, getting to know you.

The Xbox Series S version of hit role-playing game Baldur's Gate 3 won't have split-screen when it launches later this year, but that's not to say it won't receive the feature after launch.

There has been no end to the Xbox drama in relation to Baldur’s Gate 3. With the platform getting cold-shouldered hard and its release date being sent into limbo long before the game was released on PC and PS5. It would appear gamers on Microsoft’s bulky box have received some hope earlier than expected. 

For those Xbox players who have been waiting on a release for Baldur’s Gate 3 , Larian Studios and Microsoft have finally reached a solution that will allow a 2023 release. 

Baldur's Gate III will be coming to Xbox consoles this year after all. In a tweet, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke confirmed that he and Xbox head Phil Spencer had found a solution to bring the critically acclaimed CRPG to Microsoft's current-gen consoles. There's one catch though: the game won't support split-screen co-op on the less-expensive Xbox Series S — a feature the developer has been struggling to enable for months now, thanks to the technical limitations of the console. In fact, to maintain parity of features between Baldur's Gate 3 on the Xbox Series S and X, Microsoft even sent engineers from their side to help out Larian.

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The Xbox fans of the world won’t have to wait much longer to play Baldur’s Gate 3, as Larian Studios has confirmed that the game will launch on Xbox Series X/S in 2023. This announcement follows uncertainty about the game’s future on Xbox platforms, even though it’s already on PC and will be coming to PS5 soon.

Larian founder and CEO Swen Vincke has shared an update on its massive RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 coming to Xbox. While Baldur’s Gate 3 is now looking set to debut on Xbox Series consoles this year, it won’t have split-screen co-op for the Series S version.

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Baldur's Gate 3 has been in the wild on PC for a few weeks now, with the game's PlayStation launch coming in a matter of days. Unfortunately, there's still no release date for the game's planned Xbox launch, and it's because developer Larian Studios has been struggling to get the game's spilt-screen coop mode working properly on Xbox Series S. Xbox makes it clear that it wants feature parity on both of its consoles, which meant that Larian couldn't ship the game on Series X without getting split screen sorted out on Series S first.

Larian Studios head Swen Vincke has confirmed Baldur's Gate 3 will release on Xbox Series X|S later in 2023.