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[Musilla]

Microsoft Engineers Helping Get Baldur's Gate 3 Split-Screen Working on Xbox Series S - IGN

IGN speaks to Larian to reveal why Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X and S is taking so long.

www.ign.com

The truth has to do with Larian’s ongoing struggle to get Baldur’s Gate 3’s two-player split-screen co-op running well enough on the Xbox Series S, and a Microsoft policy that enforces gameplay feature parity across Xbox Series X and S. This means Larian cannot release Baldur’s Gate 3 on any Xbox Series console until it’s optimised split-screen co-op on the S to the point it hits the quality bar it needs to satisfy players.

The situation with Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X and S highlights a looming problem heading towards Microsoft. As more and more developers look to make the most of the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, will having to release a version of their multiplatform games on the less powerful S hold them back? Or, in drastic cases such as Larian’s, hold Xbox versions back altogether?

 

[graywolf323]

so Larian was telling the truth the whole time and this wasn’t because they were ‘paid’ by Sony unlike the BS that quite a few users on here were pushing

 

[DR3AM]

Should have released it as is and patched it later. No one plays split screen anymore. #fcats

 

[Fabieter]

loads of people need to eat crow for this.

 

[Fabieter]

Should have released it as is and patched it later. No one plays split screen anymore. #fcats

They can't. Ms forces feature parity.

 

[mrcroket]

Programmers today are useless.

 

[acm2000]

i would hazard a guess that the average baldurs gate player doesnt have any friends to play split screen with anyway

 

[Daneel Elijah]

3 points from the article seems relevant: the game should be out on Xbox this year, but this is not a certainty. Xbox is helping a lot, but they did not say it, it is coming from Larian. And they are not the only ones suffering from the S lack of memory. Hard situation for them to be honest. If it was a bigger studio they would have abandonned the slit screen feature and say some bullshit excuse. So good point for them at least. Shame for the Xbox players that would have wanted to play it.

 

[Gudji]

Seems like playstation might get another exclusive.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Feel bad for the devs for getting so much vitriol when the issue of them not being able to technically ship the xbox version yet came to light..

 

[Tsaki]

Seems like playstation might get another exclusive.

Well it will be a launch exclusive. With or without MS's help, they would eventually release it in that platform too. It's just that now the date can be sooner than it originally would be.

 

[Stare-Bear]

Imagine having to spend all this extra money for the least popular console…

 

[Tsaki]

Imagine having to spend all this extra money for the least popular console…

More likely than not there are more S consoles in people's homes than X. And it seems Larian are already semi-damage controlling about the state of the Xbox version when it eventually releases.

 

[Del_X]

I think they opened up more RAM to games vs OS recently. Hopefully that helps things going forward. The S really should have had an extra 2GB of RAM to work with

 

[diffusionx]

I remember the Microsoft engineer secret sauce from early last gen lol. This was before the DX12 secret sauce. Didn’t work out so well and I’m not sure it will do any better here.

 

[Kdad]

S|X architecture is basically a PC right? Just download more ram.

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Sounds like poor optimization to be honest

 

[jroc74]

This, along with the PS5 version also getting delayed is...chef's kiss. Unless PC money hatted the PC release...

So much drama when it was obvious what the issue was when they mentioned the split screen issue months ago.

 

[Js562]

Should have released it as is and patched it later. No one plays split screen anymore. #fcats

I might be the only one that plays split screen lol

 

[StereoVsn]

This, along with the PS5 version also getting delayed is...chef's kiss. Unless PC money hatted the PC release...

So much drama when it was obvious what the issue was when they mentioned the split screen issue months ago.

Gaben and Tim Epic paid off Larian, confirmed! It's the only reasonable explanation!

 

[mckmas8808]

so Larian was telling the truth the whole time and this wasn’t because they were ‘paid’ by Sony unlike the BS that quite a few users on here were pushing

It's what some of us said in 2019 before these consoles came out.

 

[NickFire]

It's what some of us said in 2019 before these consoles came out.

Yes it was.

And I still suspect that Starfield's 30 FPS is primarily a parity (Series S) bottleneck.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Sounds like poor optimization to be honest

Sounds like a shitbox in 2023 holding the XSX back.

 

[Vognerful]

Good for Xbox, the should make more efforts like that.

 

[Banjo64]

Larian was on the list of M&A targets for MS and they can’t even get their games working on their consoles sounds like they possibly asked if they could skip the S altogether?

IGN spoke to Larian boss Swen Vincke to discuss the situation. Understandably, he was at pains to avoid criticising Microsoft, and declined to comment when asked if he had requested a policy exemption (IGN understands at this stage in the Xbox Series lifecycle, Microsoft is sticking to its guns despite growing calls from the development community for the company to ditch its Series S launch requirements).

 

[JTCx]

Next gen console they say lmfao.

 

[Nydius]

As more and more developers look to make the most of the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, will having to release a version of their multiplatform games on the less powerful S hold them back? Or, in drastic cases such as Larian’s, hold Xbox versions back altogether?

Gee, IGN, it’s almost like those of us with common sense and critical thinking skills saw this coming two and a half years ago. You can’t just release a console with significantly less power and try to say it’s “the same” just because it has the same CPU. And then to dictate feature parity on developers? Lunacy.

As games began ditching cross-gen, this issue was inevitable. While devs can just keep pushing PS5 up to its maximum abilities, the Series X is held back by this feature parity clause.

All the people who kept arguing that the Series S wouldn’t be a problem and would just be “scalable like PCs” need a big fat plate of humble pie. This is going to be the first example of many.

 

[mckmas8808]

Yes it was.

And I still suspect that Starfield's 30 FPS is primarily a parity (Series S) bottleneck.

 

[JTCx]

Gee, IGN, it’s almost like those of us with common sense and critical thinking skills saw this coming two and a half years ago. You can’t just release a console with significantly less power and try to say it’s “the same” just because it has the same CPU. And then to dictate feature parity on developers? Lunacy.

As games began ditching cross-gen, this issue was inevitable. While devs can just keep pushing PS5 up to its maximum abilities, the Series X is held back by this feature parity clause.

All the people who kept arguing that the Series S wouldn’t be a problem and would just be “scalable like PCs” need a big fat plate of humble pie. This is going to be the first example of many.

The usual suspects also claimed the series S will outperform the ps5.

 

[GHG]

so Larian was telling the truth the whole time and this wasn’t because they were ‘paid’ by Sony unlike the BS that quite a few users on here were pushing

Script gonna script. They've got to take any opportunity they can.

 

[Bernoulli]

 

[Heisenberg007]

Pfft, it's a 2-minute job. Just lower the resolution slider a bit.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

More devs should do this ‘hmm, I dint think we can get this running on your console, you better send out your engineers to optimise it and finish the job’

 

[CleverCaviar]

to the game developers out there: what is the issue with split screen?

 

[ZehDon]

I remember when Destiny was going to launch sub-1080p on Xbox One, because of the weaker hardware and eSRAM configuration. Then Microsoft's engineers stepped in and actually got it running at 1080p. If they're forcing feature parity, I'd like to hope the 30% fee they charge on their platform buys developers technical support from these engineers to help achieve that when they're in a pickle.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

If this is true then what the fuck are we doing, any of us, even having an Xbox?

If they're going to screw over the people who paid for their premium console simply because of some arbitrary misguided business decision, then MS is truly awful and doesn't deserve a dime of our hard earned money.

This really pisses me off if true and it's looking more and more likely to be true.

 

[93xfan]

They can't. Ms forces feature parity.

Then no split screen on either for a while

 

[Fatal Chuck Yeager]

S|X architecture is basically a PC right? Just download more ram.

Just got to route the SQL to the Series S Tape Drive and that should fix the problem.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

i would hazard a guess that the average baldurs gate player doesnt have any friends to play split screen with anyway

Dude speak for yourself, I have plenty of friends just lining up for the 170 hours of cinematics and 6x the dialog of the LotR trilogy. It’s the ultimate couch co-op experience.

 

[solidus12]

 

[Ronin_7]

Programmers today are useless.

We do impossible things with the things are gave to us.

But you can't make an omelette without eggs.

 

[Guilty_AI]

i would hazard a guess that the average baldurs gate player doesnt have any friends to play split screen with anyway

you'd be surprised

 

[killatopak]

to the game developers out there: what is the issue with split screen?

The issue seems to stem from RAM so I guess because you can’t go too far away from someone. Different location means different textures, data etc needs to be loaded to the RAM leading to higher RAM usage which the Series S with less amounts of it becoming a problem.

 

[Lasha]

Balders Gate 3 has performance issues on many newer PC. It also runs well on other ten year old PC. The divinity games had similar performance quirks. I think this is a Larian issue more than a series S issue.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Balders Gate 3 has performance issues on many newer PC. It also runs well on other ten year old PC. The divinity games had similar performance quirks. I think this is a Larian issue more than a series S issue.

How many of those are split screen coop?

 

[Lasha]

How many of those are split screen coop?

Larian's last game has split screen coop.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Larian's last game has split screen coop.

On the PC?

 

[Lasha]

On the PC?

On PC yes. 2 players locally with two additional joining online.

 

[DeepEnigma]

On PC yes. 2 players locally with two additional joining online.

And was it as technically ambitious as this one?

 

[Corndog]

so Larian was telling the truth the whole time and this wasn’t because they were ‘paid’ by Sony unlike the BS that quite a few users on here were pushing

Who?