Baldur’s Gate 3 will be coming to Xbox this year, with split-screen removed for Series S

Baldur’s Gate 3 will be coming to Xbox this year, despite fears by developer Larian that it would have to be pushed back to 2024.

Larian founder and CEO Swev Vincke posted on Twitter that a solution had been found that would allow the game to be released on Xbox Series X and Series S this year.

“Super happy to confirm that after meeting Phil Spencer yesterday, we’ve found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we’ve been working towards for quite some time,” Vincke tweeted.

“All improvements will be there, with split-screen co-op on Series X. Series S will not feature split-screen co-op, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series.”

Split-screen co-op had been a sticking point for Larian, with the studio seemingly struggling to get the mode running on the less powerful Series S hardware to a level that it was happy with.

Earlier this month, Larian’s director of publishing Michael Douse tweeted that it seemed unlikely the game would come to Xbox this year because of the apparent belief that Microsoft required full feature parity the between Xbox Series X and Series X versions.

“We have no exclusivity deal that prevents us from launching on Xbox,” Douse said at the time. “The issue is a technical hurdle. We cannot remove the split-screen feature because we are obliged to launch with feature parity, and so continue to try and make it work.”

Despite Douse’s comments, Xbox boss Phil Spencer suggested that feature parity isn’t actually a requirement, and that he “doesn’t see a world” where ther Series S has to miss out on certain games.

Spencer told Eurogamer on Wednesday: “We’re taking feedback from devs including Larian, I met with them today to talk about it and I’m confident we’re going to find a good solution and we’re going to learn. I don’t see a world where we drop S.

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“In terms of parity, I don’t think you’ve heard from us or Larian, that this was about parity. I think that’s more that the community is talking about it. There are features that ship on X today that do not ship on S, even from our own games, like ray-tracing that works on X, it’s not on S in certain games.”

Now that the situation has seemingly been resolved by removing split-screen from the Series S version, Baldur’s Gate 3 is now expected to release on Xbox Series X and Series S by the end of 2023.