Baldur’s Gate 3: Absence of Xbox versions explained, Sony has nothing to do with it | Xbox One

Yesterday’s PlayStation case was an opportunity to lift the veil on many games. Among them, a certain Baldur’s Gate 3 particularly stood out, though not necessarily for the right reasons. Xbox gamers were really disappointed to learn that the game would only be released on PS5, PC, and Mac, and the usual speculation quickly surfaced on the web. Faced with public discontent, the studio had no choice but to speak out.

Do not single out with Sony

It’s via a message posted on
reddit that Larian Studios has made the situation clear. The studio initially indicates that it has not signed any exclusives and that there is no clause preventing it from releasing the game on Xbox:

Following yesterday’s announcement regarding the PlayStation 5 release and Baldur’s Gate 3 release date, we have made it clear that we are currently planning to release the title on PC, Mac, GeForce NOW, and PlayStation 5 however, we haven’t signed any platform exclusivity. We can deliver Baldur’s Gate 3 at , regardless of its release date. We will announce support for additional platforms if and when we are ready.

[…]

There’s no exclusive system to stop us from releasing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox at launch, if that’s technically a possibility.

Issues with Xbox Series X | S.

In addition to clarifying the situation regarding the potential exclusive contract, the studio explained why the game is not available on Xbox at this time. Teams have already had issues implementing local co-op on Xbox Series X | versions S:

We’ve seen many different interpretations of what this means, so we wanted to clarify the situation. We’ve had an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3 in development for quite some time now. We ran into some technical issues while developing this Xbox port that prevented us from confidently announcing it until we were sure we’d found the right solutions. Specifically, we couldn’t get split-screen co-op to work the same way on Xbox Series X and S, which is a non-negotiable condition for the game to launch.

When we announce other platforms, we want to make sure that each release meets our standards and expectations.

So, there is an Xbox version internally, but the teams have been unable to deliver a satisfactory experience on Microsoft consoles. If the game ever sees the light of day on Xbox, it will be after the teams solve the above problems.

We haven’t given up on Xbox players and hope the studio can find solutions quickly. Baldur’s Gate 3 will also be released on August 31st on PS5, PC, Mac and GeForce NOW, NVIDIA’s cloud gaming platform.