Highlights

  • Larian CEO Swen Vincke provides a positive update on the progress of Baldur's Gate 3 for Xbox, assuring fans that the game is still on track for a 2023 release.
  • The Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3 has faced delays due to the requirement of a split-screen co-op feature for both Series X and Series S, but the development team is actively playtesting and working on addressing any bugs.
  • Despite earlier skepticism from Microsoft, leaked documents reveal that Baldur's Gate 3 was not highly regarded before its launch, Larian Studios took a leap and was rewarded with critical acclaim and strong fan response.

Larian CEO Swen Vincke gives Xbox fans a small development update on how that version of Baldur's Gates 3 is progressing and if the game is still on track for 2023. Following a lengthy Early Access period, Baldur's Gate 3 finally launched in full this summer on PC and PS5 to both critical acclaim as well as strong word of mouth from fans. In fact, during its PC launch in August, Baldur's Gate 3 smashed plenty of Steam and concurrent player records, while also becoming one of the highest rated PC games ever.

Still, all that success continued to take place even with the Xbox version seemingly nowhere to be seen. As fans eventually found out, the major hold up was that Microsoft wanted parity between the Series X and Series S versions of Baldur's Gate 3, something which was proving to be a bit more difficult for Larian to achieve due to requirement of a split-screen co-op feature for both systems. The studio and various members of the team have continued to provide periodic updates on how the Xbox version was coming along, with a recent update from the Larian CEO providing a bit of good news to those still waiting.

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Taking to social media, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke gave Xbox fans a small update in regards to where Baldur's Gate 3 currently is within the development cycle. Thankfully, the team has continued to make progress as Baldur's Gate 3 is being actively playtested to ensure that everything is working correctly, and last minute bugs can be found and squashed. While Vincke wasn't able to provide any sort of release window, they did confirm that 2023 is still being targeted and that an exact date will be provided once Larian is sure the game is ready.

The news continues to follow a positive trend, as the last update from Director of Publishing at Larian Studios Michael Douse earlier in October revealed that the Xbox versions continued to make progress and the team remained confident in the 2023 launch date. Fan response to Vincke's post were appreciative though many commented that the wait continues to be the toughest part.

Besides the split screen issue, Microsoft found itself with a bit of egg on its face earlier this year when leaked documents from the Activision Blizzard acquisition revealed that the company didn't think too highly of Baldur's Gate 3 prior to it launching, calling it a "second-run Stadia PC RPG" and not worth the asking price to add it to Game Pass. However, Larian's Michael Douse took a more diplomatic approach when addressing the revelation on social media, saying that there was no way of knowing how Baldur's Gate 3 would ultimately turn out and be recieved and that many others in the industry felt the same way. The studio took a leap and was ultimately rewarded for its efforts by fans.