Baldur’s Gate 3 set for a 2023 release on Xbox Series X|S

thesixthaxis.com:

With the recent compromise with Microsoft that will allow Larian Studios to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox Series X|S, the studio has now confirmed that the critically acclaimed RPG is expected to release on Xbox by the end of 2023.

IGN asked Larian’s founder and game director Swen Vincke when Xbox fans could expect to play the hit RPG, and he said, “It’s 2023. And 2023 is narrowing, so it’s already pretty precise in my book. Between September and November… So, as fast as we can, honestly.”

Already out on PC and set to release on PS5 next week, Baldur’s Gate 3 for Xbox was put on hold as Larian struggled to meet a technical requirement set out by Microsoft for all games: feature parity between Xbox Series X and Series S. Baldur’s Gate 3 features splitscreen co-op for two players on PC and PS5 (in addition to four players online co-op), but while this would be possible on Series X, the lower-powered Series S was struggling. This forced Larian to pause development so they could focus on actually finishing the game, before revisiting their options on Xbox.

At Gamescom 2023 after the hugely successful PC release in August, a meeting between Xbox boss Phil Spencer and Vincke was able to get them an exception to this rule, allowing them to drop splitscreen for the Xbox Series S version of Baldur’s Gate 3 and implement it later on. While a slight shame for Series S owners, they will still be able to join friends through online co-op.

Larian is focussed right now on getting the PS5 version out of the door next week on 6th September, as well as delivering a second major patch to the game, addressing some more key weaknesses and bugs from the original release, but once the dust has settled, they’ll be able to return to the Xbox Series