For those Xbox players who have been waiting on a release for Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios and Microsoft have finally reached a solution that will allow a 2023 release.
Larian had assured all that the game would be released on Xbox, and that its decision to launch on PC first, then PlayStation was not an oversight, just the result of a technical issue. This week, the team announced that after a meeting with Xbox head Phil Spencer, they have found a solution that means the road to launch has begun.
Super happy to confirm that after meeting @XboxP3 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.
— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) August 24, 2023
The major issue was with split-screen co-op and the hardware infrastructure of the Xbox Series S. Microsoft had even sent engineers over to Larian to help them with the issue. When the game comes to Xbox, split-screen co-op will be available on Xbox series X, but Xbox Series S owners will not have the feature. Microsoft generally doesn’t allow publishers to launch with certain features only on Series X or S, so there had to be some wiggle room since the problem couldn’t be entirely cracked.
All hotfixes and updates that are happening on PC will be in the Xbox release. There will also be cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox. There will also be cross-play between PlayStation 5 and other platforms, meaning that the Larian account system will take care of this.
For the avoidance of doubt, Xbox will indeed feature cross-save not only between Xbox and PC but also Xbox and PlayStation 5, thanks to our Larian accounts system. ??
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) August 25, 2023
Speaking of fixes, the game got its first major patch, and it is a big one that fixes more than 1,000 bugs, fixes a number of issues with characters, floating items, romance scenes that would not trigger, and more issues. There are fixed visual bugs (“mugs and newspapers floating in the air during dialogues - the characters holding them were correctly hidden but the items themselves weren't. Ghosties begone!”) and even improved kissing for short races. Because of spoilers, the patch notes still contain a number of spoiler tags, but you can still get an idea by looking at the Steam page at just how many changes the team has made.
Of course if you want to read the full—full—patch notes in the version that is too long for Steam, you can read those over at Baldur's Gate 3. They’re not spoiler tagged, for those keeping their eyes averted.
