When Larian Studios dropped the release date trailer for Baldur’s Gate 3 during yesterday’s State of Play, we learned that the hotly anticipated turn-based roleplaying game from the makers of the Divinity series would launch on PlayStation 5 in addition to PC.
That rubbed many Xbox fans the wrong way, however, especially because Larian CEO Swen Vincke told GamesIndustry.biz back in 2019 (before the game launched in early access) that it wouldn’t ‘play the exclusivity game’.
Today, the studio has issued a statement to the press where they reveal that there is no exclusivity at play with Baldur’s Gate 3. The issue is of a technical nature, as Larian has been working on an Xbox port for a while now but has encountered problems in making the split-screen co-op mode work exactly the same way on Xbox Series S and X. Larian underlined this is a requirement before they can ship the game to Xbox. However, given that there is no exclusivity deal preventing the game’s day and date release on Xbox, Larian left the door open, provided that the technical hurdles can be overcome. Finally, they noted that any version of Baldur’s Gate 3 would have to live up to the high standard set by Larian.
This frank statement from Larian underlines once again that the Xbox Series S console is making some developers sweat as they try to optimize around the less powerful hardware. It’s not the first time we’ve heard complaints about the Xbox Series S, after all.
Following the initial concerns relayed by respected studios like id, 4A Games, and Techland (some of them before the Xbox Series S even launched), the most obvious outcry happened when Rocksteady producer Fleur Marty defended the decision of his fellow Warner Bros. Montréal developers (who released Gotham Knights with a 30 frames per second cap on consoles) by calling the Series S a ‘potato’ that he considered responsible for hamstringing an entire generation of games. A few days later, a visual artist from Bossa Studios shared that many studios had been trying to get Microsoft to drop the requirement to launch Xbox Series S versions alongside Xbox Series X. That obviously hasn’t been yet, though, and it’s doubtful it ever will.
Baldur’s Gate 3 will launch on PC, Mac, and PlayStation 5 on August 31st. The game is already available on GeForce NOW, at any rate, so even players without a powerful PC or a PlayStation 5 console could still play it via the cloud.
