Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox is happening – but not anytime soon

Larian is working on a Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox release, the studio announced in a statement sent by email, but Series S troubles are holding it back. The studio made a surprise appearance during Sony’s February State of Play presentation and announced Baldur’s Gate 3 for PS5, but no Xbox release turned up in any subsequent announcements or press materials.

Fans soon began speculating about Baldur’s Gate 3 being a console exclusive, especially since Larian’s last game, the hit Divinity Original Sin 2 released on all platforms. It turns out the Series S is just making development difficult.

“We have no exclusivity for which platforms we can bring BG3 to, or when, and will announce support for additional platforms if and when we’re ready,” a Larian representative said in the statement. “We’ve had an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3 in development for some time now. We’ve run into some technical issues in developing the Xbox port that have stopped us feeling 100% confident in announcing it until we’re certain we’ve found the right solutions – specifically, we’ve been unable to get splitscreen co-op to work to the same standard on both Xbox Series X and S, which is a requirement for us to ship.”

Larian is apparently not confident that it can overcome these issues. Later in the statement, the studio representative said if releasing it on other platforms, including Xbox, becomes a technical possibility, then the team will make the announcement when they’re ready.

Baldur’s Gate 3 will release on Aug. 31, 2023, for PS5 and PC. Pre-orders are open now, and the game remains in early access on Steam, where you can buy it now and play roughly a third of the full experience.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF