The State of Play PlayStation released yesterday was an opportunity to lift the veil on several games. Among them, a certain Baldur’s Gate 3 particularly stood out, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Xbox gamers were indeed disappointed to learn that the game would only be released on PS5, PC and Mac, and very soon the usual speculations appeared on the web. Faced with general discontent, the studio had no choice but to speak out.
No exclusivity with Sony
It is via a message published on
Reddit that Larian Studios has clarified the situation. The studio initially indicates that it has not signed any exclusivity and that no clause prevents it from releasing the game on Xbox:
Following yesterday’s announcement regarding the PlayStation 5 version and release date of Baldur’s Gate 3, we have clarified that currently we plan to release the title on PC, Mac, GeForce NOW and PlayStation 5 That said, we have not signed any exclusivity as to which platforms we can offer Baldur’s Gate 3 on, regardless of the release date. We will announce support for additional platforms if and when we are ready.
[…]
There’s no platform exclusivity stopping us from releasing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox at launch, if that’s a technical possibility.
Problems on Xbox Series X|S versions
In addition to clarifying the situation regarding a possible exclusive contract, the studio explained why the game will not be available on Xbox at the moment. The teams would indeed have encountered problems with the implementation of local cooperation on the Xbox Series X|S versions:
We have 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 some time now. We encountered a few technical issues during the development of this Xbox port that prevented us from announcing it with confidence until we were sure we had found the correct solutions. Specifically, we were unable to get split-screen co-op to work the same on Xbox Series X and S, which is a non-negotiable condition in order to release the game.
If and when we announce other platforms, we want to make sure that each release lives up to our standards and expectations.
An Xbox version therefore exists internally, but the teams have not been able to offer a satisfactory experience on Microsoft consoles. If the game sees the light of day on Xbox, it will be following the teams have solved the problems mentioned above.
Hope is not lost for Xbox players and we hope that the studio will be able to find solutions quickly. Baldur’s Gate 3 will also be released on August 31 on PS5, PC, Mac and GeForce NOW, NVIDIA’s cloud gaming platform.
