Baldur's Gate 3 Is Coming to Xbox With a Catch

The Xbox community missed out on the launch of Baldur's Gate 3 after developer Larian Studios announced plans for only a PC and PlayStation launch, but the creators said before that they were at one point working on an Xbox version of the game. Some technical snags put that project on hold with Larian saying it wasn't quite ready to formally announce an Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3, but now, that's changed with Larian boss Swen Vincke saying on Thursday that the studio has reached an agreement with Xbox that'll see Baldur's Gate 3 releasing on that platform at some point this year, but the Xbox Series S will have to sacrifice splitscreen gameplay to make the arrangement possible.

Baldur's Gate 3 On Xbox Consoles

Vincke tweeted about Baldur's Gate 3 coming to Xbox consoles on Thursday amid waves of Gamecom news during an already busy week. He said he met with Xbox boss Phil Spencer and indicated that whatever issues Larian might've had previously that would've prevented the game from coming to that platform have apparently been resolved or at least will be resolved at some point this year.

"Super happy to confirm that after meeting [Phil Spencer] yesterday, we've found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur's Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we've been working towards for quite some time," Vincke tweeted in his announcement.

While not explicitly stated this way, it seems as though the Xbox Series S may have been posing an issue when it came to implementing splitscreen in Baldur's Gate 3. That's evidenced by the fact that Xbox Series X players will be able to take part in splitscreen, but those on the Xbox Series S will not.

"All improvements will be there, with split-screen coop on Series X," he continued. "Series S will not feature split-screen coop, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series.

When Is Baldur's Gate 3 Coming to Xbox?

So, we know the game's coming to the Xbox platforms now, but we don't have an exact date just yet. The only known window is 2023 which wouldn't have meant as much earlier in the year since it'd be so broad, but now that we're more than halfway through the year, it gives Xbox players something to look forward to a bit sooner.

Is Baldur's Gate 3 Worth It?

Despite missing out on the launch of the game, Xbox players (and PlayStation players to a lesser degree) are in a unique position to get a feel for the game after its initial PC release. It's a Dungeons & Dragons game governed mostly by the rules of the tabletop game, so if you're not big on D&D, that might be a disqualifier.

However, many are probably changing their tunes after seeing how well the game has done. Most notably, it's currently the top-rated 2023 release on Metacritic which means that it's dethroned The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom which previously held that title. It's "Overwhelmingly Positive" on Steam, and the game of the year questions are more being phrased as which games could potentially beat Baldur's Gate 3 rather than if the game will win those honors or not, so yes, it seems Baldur's Gate 3 is worth it even if you're not well-versed in D&D. You can read our review of the game to learn more about it and how it compares to other like RPGs.