What you need to know
- Baldur's Gate 3 was delayed on Xbox due to a parity issue with splitscreen co-op on the Xbox Series S, but Microsoft eventually allowed developer Larian to bring the game to its consoles without including splitscreen for Series S.
- Larian previously said the game's Xbox launch would be before the end of 2023. Recently, a leak suggested it would be on December 6 specifically.
- However, Larian's Director of Publishing Michael Douse took to X (formerly Twitter) to dispute this and deny confirmation of this release date.
- Douse says the plan is still to release the game on Xbox before 2023 ends, but that Larian will "work on it until we’re happy to release it."
While Baldur's Gate 3 is still on track to arrive on Xbox before the end of 2023, it looks like players still don't have a concrete release date to look forward to.
A recent leak suggested that the award-winning RPG would launch on Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S consoles on December 6. However, Larian Studios' Director of Publishing Michael Douse took to X (formerly Twitter) to dispute it directly.
"News to me," Douse said in a Tweet. "We’ll know the release date once we’re confident in the release version. The plan is still before the end of the year. The key takeaway here should be that we want a really good version that Xbox fans deserve. This means we’ll work on it until we’re happy to release it."
News to me https://t.co/ktaQ4sfuvRNovember 5, 2023
It's good to hear that Larian still expects to be able to ship the Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3 before the turn of the new year, though the wording of Douse's post makes me think that it'll likely release towards the end of December rather than close to the start of it. There's also a chance that it could be delayed into early 2024 if Larian isn't "happy to release it," as well.
While the game released on Windows PC on August 3 and made its way to PS5 a month later on September 6, the Xbox port was delayed indefinitely due to parity issues preventing splitscreen co-op from working on the Xbox Series S. However, Microsoft would eventually come to agreement with Larian, allowing the developer to exclude splitscreen from the Xbox Series S version so that the game could be brought to its consoles.
Baldur's Gate 3 is easily one of the best PC games of 2023, one of the biggest frontrunners for Game of the Year, and one of the top RPGs of all time. In our Baldur's Gate 3 review, my colleague Jennifer Young gave it a perfect five-star rating and said that "Larian has ultimately achieved its ambition for a generation-defining RPG." After playing through it and experiencing its phenomenal writing, characters, combat, and presentation, I can confidently say that I'm in full agreement.
