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[VGC] Baldur’s Gate 3 won’t come to Xbox before 2024, Larian suggests

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Writing on Twitter, Larian’s director of publishing Michael Douse seemed to imply that the issues relating to launching the game on Microsoft‘s platform may not be resolved until next year.

“We have quite a few engineers working very hard to do what no other RPG of this scale has achieved: seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op on Series S,” Douse wrote. “We hope to have an update by the end of the year.”
In June, speaking to IGN, founder and creative director Swen Vincke was asked why the game is coming to PC in August and PS5 in September, but still doesn’t have a date on Xbox Series X/S.

According to Vincke, the issue lies with a Microsoft policy that requires games to have the same gameplay features on both Xbox Series X and Series S.

While Series S games often have a lower resolution, frame rate or level of detail, this is considered acceptable by Microsoft given that it’s less powerful than the Series X. What isn’t considered acceptable, however, is the removal of modes or other features.

The issue, then, as confirmed by the studio in February, is that the split-screen co-op mode runs perfectly well on Xbox Series X but is struggling to run to an acceptable level on Xbox Series S.

The team is reportedly hesitant to remove split-screen co-op altogether (thereby making the Series X version less feature-rich than the PS5 one), but Microsoft’s policy also means it can’t just remove it from the Series S version and keep it in the Series X version.
Explaining the complexity of the co-op mode, Vincke explained: “You’re very free in what you do, more free than people expect. That means you can run into a really big city that’s much more dense than people expect.

“You can do all kinds of craziness, so it requires a lot of optimisation. On certain platforms we’re just faster than on other platforms. It just takes us time. That’s the reality of development.

“It’s not that we planned this. Our plan was that we wanted to have a simultaneous release. But we’ve been on this game for a long time. It’s a really big game. The amount of things you can do in it is insane. I think people will be surprised when they see everything.

“There’s constraints we have to overcome, so we just work on them. Some take more time.”

Vincke also conceded that there ultimately may have to be some “compromises” made to release the Xbox version, but chose not to go into further detail.
 
That damn Sony buying exclusivity again damnit! Poor Xbox… Damn you Sony!!!! Oh wait…

loop windows GIF
 
Microsoft making a rod for their own back with the Series S in this instance. Xbox Series X owners are understandably going to be pissed off if features are held back because of the S.

I’m assuming that it will only be a matter of time before more games have to either remove features entirely or drop support for Series S and X because of the parity wall.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I’m assuming that it will only be a matter of time before more games have to either remove features entirely or drop support for Series S and X because of the parity wall.
Tbf, this with BG3 is basically worst case scenario. AAA production game + split-screen with full freedom of movement/action, a feature that has been historically problematic to implement due to memory limitations + set in a dense open world city where half of the NPCs can be interacted with and every building can be entered on.
 
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If it was as simple as dropping the resolution that many people bilked the Series S, this wouldn't be a problem. It's a classic example of people saying having a set hardware target is the better idea than two sku's with seperate capabilities.

Sucks for the X though as holding something back for an arbitrary reason gotta sting. Game is really set to raise the bar on the CRPG genre in a big way and I couldn't be more excited for it. I'd even argue too that the game really should be shipped with all features, it's so very unique having a co-op experience like this, I can't really think of any RPG with a scale like this that has co-op. And it's fun as shit too, my wife and I have had a great time with the co-op and I can't wait to jump in this weekend.
 
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solidus12

Member
I remember when all the media and paid shills were criticizing PlayStation for not releasing a less powerful version of the PS5 like Series S, which was considered a genius move, forcing Sony to make a statement:

cJO2vXe.jpg


I also remember how the same group of individuals stated that Series S was on par or would outperform the PS5.

Dj Khaled Congratulations GIF
 
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What’s gonna happen is the Series X version is gonna have split-screen cut out, in order to hit parity with Series S. But then people are gonna bitch that the Xbox version is compromised (which it would be). There’s no win here. And Xbox can’t allow Series S games to start releasing without same features as X. The whole sales pitch of the split user base from the get go was one could do high-end games at 4K and the other could do high-end games at 1080p. They can’t start the slippery slope of Series S versions having features stripped out and there being content differences. That would be very bad for business. The whole point of Series X|S was that it’s the same games on both, just a fidelity and performance jump on the X that could potentially outperform PS5.

They made their bed this generation. They gotta see it through.
 
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I remember when all the media and paid shills were criticizing PlayStation for not releasing a less powerful version of the PS5 like Series S, which was considered a genius move, forcing Sony to make a statement:

cJO2vXe.jpg


I also remember how the same group of individuals stated that Series S was on par or would outperform the PS5.

Dj Khaled Congratulations GIF
The cpu on the series S is faster than the PS5. PS5 never stood a chance 🥹. And the bigger brother eats monsters for breakfast. Apparently it doesn’t play a lot of video games though.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Awesome response. ....I don't need to have made one. It's not a FPS, it's a point, click turned-based game. Turn down the resolution, framerate and other specs. It's not that difficult.
You should tell Microsoft, who have been helping.


We've certainly had support from Microsoft,” he said. “We had support from the ATG group. They've been doing great. They've been helping a lot.
 

Three

Member
Microsoft making a rod for their own back with the Series S in this instance. Xbox Series X owners are understandably going to be pissed off if features are held back because of the S.

I’m assuming that it will only be a matter of time before more games have to either remove features entirely or drop support for Series S and X because of the parity wall.
This is worse than features now, it's games being held back for XSX users. Don't worry about them being pissed though, have rarely seen an xbox fan actually hold anyone to account for the Series S. They will just continue to complain about how those must be exclusivity deals or lazy devs.
 

NEbeast

Member
When do they just drop co-op? There comes a point where you're not going to make all the extra money/work back from the series s anyway.
 
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