Baldur’s Gate 3 has taken the gaming industry by storm, and PlayStation 5 players are anxiously waiting for the console release of the title, since the game was already released for PC a few weeks ago. The Xbox release of the game has been a hot topic of discussion all over the community, but now we have a definitive time slot to look forward to for the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X/S. And the good news is, its not far at all.
For those who are unaware, Baldur’s Gate 3 is an epic, fantastical, role-playing game based on Dungeons and Dragons. The title has accumulated a huge fanbase over the course of its early access period as well as its full launch on PC.
When Does Baldur’s Gate 3 Release For Xbox?
In an interview with IGN, Director, Swen Vincke, mentioned when the company plans to release Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox. According to him, we can expect the title on to arrive on the console between the months of September and November.
“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…”
Larian Studios is currently prioritizing the release of the PlayStation 5 version of the game, which is due to drop only a few days from now. The Xbox release was slowed down due to the inadequate performance of the Xbox Series S. Vincke further explained:
“So the Xbox Series X version was already in good shape last time I looked at it. So we’re just going to go through the motions, ‘Okay, what do we still need to do?’
There’s a bunch of stuff that needs to happen to finalize it. But I think from a content point of view and from a technical point of view, we’re actually very close.”
Why is Baldur’s Gate 3 Releasing Later for Xbox?
The main problem is the Xbox Series S. Many game developers are criticizing the Xbox Series S due to its hardware restraints, and the fact it is harder to optimize games compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X. In fact, the reason Baldur’s Gate 3 was delayed on Xbox was due to Microsoft’s policy that whatever game launches on the Xbox Series X must have an equal amount of content as the Series S version.
For Larian Studios, adding splitscreen compatibility was the issue due to which the Xbox version of the game was delayed. But after a meeting with Phil Spencer, Larian Studios has opted to drop the splitscreen feature from the Series S. Vincke continued:
“It was running already before, so it shouldn’t take that long. It doesn’t mean that we are not going to try to make it work also in splitscreen, because I mean as I said, the team continues to optimize for all platforms because we really want to hit 60fps across the board on everything,”
Swen Vincke also mentioned that they are trying to reduce the minimum specs required on PC to play Baldur’s Gate 3, in an effort to accommodate as many players as possible”
“The problem really with optimization is…with so many systems in parallel with multiplayer and splitscreen and what have you is…you never know where you end. And, I mean, we’ve seen people walk around with the armies of followers, with all zombies and stuff like that, and then they’re standing on top of the roof and then they’re launching fireballs across the entire city,
And it’s great that you can do all of that, but the machine suffers. And we want to get that as high as we can, because that will ultimately allow more people to play Baldur’s Gate 3.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 is set to release on PlayStation 5 on September 6, while releasing later on Xbox in the coming months. Will you be playing it? Let us know in the comments!
Source: IGN
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