Making an appearance at yesterday's PlayStation State of Play, developer Larian Studios announced that Baldur's Gate 3 will be launching on August 31st for PC and PlayStation 5. It will feature splitscreen co-op for two players or online co-op for up to four, as well as controller support on PC, full support for the PS5's DualSense controller, and more. The new release date reveal trailer is narrated by none other than actor J.K. Simmons, who plays the part of General Ketheric Thorm in the game.
Baldur's Gate 3 will also release with a Deluxe Edition and Collector's Edition, both of which will provide players with 72-hours of early access, as well as a plethora of extra physical and digital goodies. I know a couple of the lads here at Gaming Nexus are pretty tempted by the Collector's Edition. I'm on team "you can't take your money with you when you're gone!"
For you Xbox folks, it appears it's not time to fret just yet, as Larian released a follow-up statement today to clarify that there is no PlayStation console exclusivity deal, and that the developer has simply run into issues getting the Xbox Series X|S versions running splitscreen co-op the way they want it to:
"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."
"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."
- Larian Studios
