Larian Studios recently confirmed that Baldur’s Gate 3, its surprise hit RPG due out soon on PS5, will also be out on Xbox before the end of 2023. That leaves a lot of room for the release date, so we took a moment to ask director Swen Vincke when fans can expect Larian’s RPG on Xbox.
“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,” Vincke said.
Vincke says that Larian Studios is currently prioritizing the release of the PS5 version, which is due out in a couple days, as well as the patches for the PC version. After that, Larian Studios will shift over to the Xbox version.
“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?’ Vincke says.
“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.”
After that, Vincke says, Larian Studios will proceed through the usual testing and certification requirements ahead of release.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox version was originally delayed due to an issue with being able to play in split-screen on Xbox Series S. But after a meeting with Xbox’s Phil Spencer, Larian Studio was able to gain an exception allowing it to drop split-screen on the Xbox Series S version.
“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,” Vincke says.
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?’
Vincke added that Larian Studios would actually like to reduce Baldur’s Gate 3’s minimum specs on PC with an eye toward giving more players an opportunity to play it. It’s a big undertaking, though.
“Tthe 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 ends. 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,” Vincke says. “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.”
For now, Larian Studios is continuing to work on Patch 2, which should be out before the end of the week. Vince has also told IGN that Larian Studios is planning to fix a a “very stupid bug” that blocked 1500 lines of content from Minthara while dispelling various rumors about Baldur’s Gate 3’s content cuts.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is slated to release on PS5 on September 6.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
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