Last week, Xbox gamers found out they would get Baldur's Gate 3 this year after all. Previous news had pointed to the game being delayed to next year as developer Larian Studios tried to find a way to make the split-screen local co-op functionality work correctly on the Xbox Series S. That's the reason the game isn't launching on Xbox consoles alongside the PlayStation 5 launch (scheduled for September 6th).
Following an in-person meeting with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer at Gamescom 2023, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke relayed the news to fans: Microsoft had budged on the parity clause between Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X versions, allowing the Belgian studio to release Baldur's Gate 3 without the split-screen local co-op feature on the less powerful console.
However, that doesn't mean Series S owners should drop all hopes of ever getting that feature. On the official Xbox Twitter account, Microsoft reps reassured them that the engineering work in collaboration with Larian would continue in the attempt to release split-screen co-op at a later date with a Baldur's Gate 3 patch. Of course, there's no telling if this will happen or, if it does, when. Still, it's important to see that Microsoft and Larian are still trying to avoid leaving Series S owners behind.
In other Baldur's Gate 3 news, Larian released the first proper patch a few days ago, fixing over a thousand bugs and making various balance changes to the acclaimed cRPG. The developer also promised that the second patch is coming soon, delivering 'significant performance improvements'. Let's hope the developer is referring mostly to the underwhelming performance in Act 3 when the player party arrives in the titular city and CPU optimization takes a major hit due to the many NPCs.
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