Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox not ruled out

Larian CEO says they “aren’t playing the exclusivity game”

Update (Feb. 27, 2023): Larian Studios provided a detailed statement regarding their plans for a Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3, confirming that a port is in the works:

"Following yesterday’s PS5 and release date announcement, we’ve clarified that right now, we’re planning to release Baldur’s Gate 3 for PC, Mac, GeForce NOW and PS5. That said, we have no exclusivity for which platforms we can bring BG3 to, or when, and will announce support for additional platforms if and when we’re ready.

We’re seeing a lot of varied interpretations of what that means, so we wanted to clarify further. We’ve had an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3 in development for some time now. We’ve run into some technical issues in developing the Xbox port that have stopped us feeling 100% confident in announcing it until we’re certain we’ve found the right solutions – specifically, we’ve been unable to get splitscreen co-op to work to the same standard on both Xbox Series X and S, which is a requirement for us to ship.

There’s no platform exclusivity preventing us from releasing BG3 on Xbox day and date, should that be a technical possibility. If and when we do announce further platforms, we want to make sure each version lives up to our standards & expectations."

Original (Feb. 24, 2023): Baldur’s Gate 3 from Larian Studios, the developer behind the hit RPGs Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2, was announced to be released on PC and PS5 on August 31, 2023, at yesterday’s State of Play show, leading to speculation that Sony had claimed the Dungeons & Dragons game as an exclusive for its console.

Larian Studio’s CEO, Swen Vincke, has denied this on Twitter, saying: “Relax. We still aren't playing the exclusivity game.”

Relax. We still aren't playing the exclusivity game.

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) February 24, 2023

Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X|S, then, is definitely not ruled out, but it also doesn’t seem to be set in stone that a Xbox version will actually be made in the future.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 first got a release on PC before it was ported to PS4, Xbox One, and eventually Nintendo Switch.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was launched as an early access title on Steam in 2020, but is now finally nearing full completion. It has already received over 50,000 reviews on Steam, which show “Very Positive” impressions from early adopters.

Larian Studios also announced that Academy Award winner J. K. Simmons stars in the game as the necromancer General Ketheric Thorm, one of the title’s antagonists. This isn’t Simmons’ first time appearing in a video game and you can read more about his storied gaming past in the linked article.