Image source: Larian Studios
Xbox players looking forward to Larian Studios’ upcoming RPG, Baldur’s Gate 3, might have to cool their expectations. According to a recent Tweet by the director of publishing at Larian Michael Douse, the highly anticipated title may not be available on Xbox until 2024.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox Launch Delayed to 2024
In an interview with IGN in June, Swen Vincke, the founder and creative director, addressed the discrepancy in the release dates. While the game was set to launch on PC in August and on PS5 in September, no specific date was announced for the Xbox Series X/S version.
Vincke explained that the delay was due to a Microsoft policy that demands games to offer the same gameplay features on both the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles.
Series S games generally have lower resolutions, frame rates, or levels of detail, which is in line with Microsoft’s recognition of its lower power compared to Series X. However, the problem arises when games completely eliminate specific modes or features, which goes against the policy and is considered unacceptable.
As officially announced by the studio in February, the issue primarily concerns the split-screen co-op mode. Although it operates seamlessly on the Xbox Series X, it encounters difficulties in achieving satisfactory performance on the Xbox Series S.
The development team hesitates to completely eliminate split-screen co-op since it would result in the Series X version having fewer features compared to the PS5 version. However, Microsoft’s policy prevents them from retaining it in the Series X version while removing it from the Series S version.
Vincke explained:
“You’re very free in what you do, more free than people expect. That means you can run into a really big city that’s much more dense than people expect.
“You can do all kinds of craziness, so it requires a lot of optimization. On certain platforms, we’re just faster than on other platforms. It just takes us time. That’s the reality of development.
“It’s not that we planned this. Our plan was that we wanted to have a simultaneous release. But we’ve been on this game for a long time. It’s a really big game. The amount of things you can do in it is insane. I think people will be surprised when they see everything.
“There’s constraints we have to overcome, so we just work on them. Some take more time.”
Vincke admitted that some compromises might need to be made to release the Xbox version, but he refrained from going into further detail at the time.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is set to launch on PC later this week, Aug. 3, and on PlayStation in early September.
