![]() “We've certainly had support from Microsoft,” he said. While Microsoft did not respond to IGN’s request for comment in time for publication, Vincke confirmed this support. So it comes as no surprise to learn engineers from the Xbox Advanced Technology Group (ATG) have been drafted in to help Larian get the S version of Baldur’s Gate 3 up to scratch. Its customers are missing out on one of the most promising role-playing games in years for who knows how long because of what many players will deem an arbitrary release policy. While this is frustrating for Larian, it’s a bad look for Microsoft. “Now they have everything, so they see what they're up against.” “It was very hard for them to do this when the game wasn't ‘finished finished’ yet, because all the content kept on coming,” Vincke explained. Larian’s engineers found optimisation work on the S version difficult because as content kept being added over the years the scope of the game increased. Vincke pointed to an additional issue: the nature of Baldur’s Gate 3’s development. I don't want to say it's going to be like this until we've finished and decided it's good for release.” “But I don't want to jump ahead of the development team, which is doing remarkable things. “That's one of the reasons why we're taking more time also. “We're trying to be very limited in our compromises we have to make,” he said. ![]() Vincke said Larian may have to make some “compromises” to get the Xbox version out, but declined to say what they are. There's constraints we have to overcome, so we just work on them. I think people will be surprised when they see everything. ![]() The amount of things you can do in it is insane. But we've been on this game for a long time. Our plan was that we wanted to have a simultaneous release. On certain platforms we're just faster than on other platforms. You can do all kinds of craziness, so it requires a lot of optimisation. “That means you can run into a really big city that's much more dense than people expect. “You're very free in what you do, more free than people expect,” Vincke said. Rather, Vincke pointed to the complexity of Baldur’s Gate 3 itself and the freedom it offers players in split-screen as the root cause of its troubles. Understandably, he was at pains to avoid criticising Microsoft, and declined to comment when asked if he had requested a policy exemption (IGN understands at this stage in the Xbox Series lifecycle, Microsoft is sticking to its guns despite growing calls from the development community for Xbox to ditch its Series S launch requirements). ![]() To dig into the detail, IGN discussed the situation with Larian boss Swen Vincke. It wanted to release Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X and S at the same time as on PS5, but because of this pesky split-screen co-op issue on the S, it can’t. Not only is Microsoft keen that multiplatform games launch on Xbox with the same gameplay features as those seen on PlayStation, but Larian would face a potential backlash from Xbox players, particularly Xbox Series X players, if Baldur’s Gate 3 launched without split-screen when the console is perfectly capable of supporting it and the PS5 version has it. And you might have finally asked, why not take the drastic decision to cut split-screen co-op entirely from the Xbox Series version of the game? Baldur’s Gate 3 is a considered by many to be a predominantly single-player game, after all, and let’s not forget Microsoft’s own studio, 343, scrapped split-screen from the ill-fated Halo Infinite last year. ![]() You might have then asked, why not ditch split-screen co-op on the Xbox Series S version? As mentioned, Microsoft mandates gameplay feature parity across X and S, so this is not allowed either. You might have asked, why not just release Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X, ditching the S altogether? Microsoft does not allow this. This is about a key gameplay feature difference, and that’s where Microsoft draws the line. This is not about a framerate difference, a resolution difference, or whether or not the S version has the same advanced graphics effects as the X version. This means Larian cannot release Baldur’s Gate 3 on any Xbox Series console until it’s optimised split-screen co-op on the S to the point it hits the quality bar it needs to satisfy players. The truth has to do with Larian’s ongoing struggle to get Baldur’s Gate 3’s two-player split-screen co-op running well enough on the Xbox Series S, and a Microsoft policy that enforces gameplay feature parity across Xbox Series X and S. ![]()
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