Xbox Is Working With Larian To Bring Split-Screen To Baldur's Gate 3 'Post Launch'

out of the millions of people who will play this game how many will be playing this on series S in split screen its probably in the hundreds if that.

split screen is incredibly niche now days

@trev666 Whilst I do agree and that is 'part' of the issue too, its good to see that MS are willing to put in 'work' to help the developer.

As you state, its a very niche 'feature' and therefore likely doesn't have a ton of budget to 'dedicate' to getting it 'working' on a specific hardware. The more time it takes, the more it 'costs' to implement a 'niche' feature, the more it costs, the more games they 'need' to sell to recuperate costs and if 'couch co-op' isn't going to help sell a LOT 'more' games on Series S, they cannot 'justify' the costs.

However, it may benefit MS more - least of all with 'perception' of their 'entry' Hardware. The 'perception' is that the Series S is not 'adequate' to deliver next gen games and at 'some' point will either hold Xbox back or (like we saw with this) potentially not getting 'games' at all if they can't get 'parity'. But if MS 'prove' that with a little time/effort, they can help get it working, it helps them as well.

It makes sense, devs aren't used to building games utilising all the 'next gen' hardware built in effectively/efficiently if at all. Most games are built for Single Thread CPU's and therefore not utilising the multi-thread CPU's built in to Series Consoles, wasting a LOT of CPU resources...

@trev666 This is beyond the point.
I, and many others, have purchased Series S under the promise of feature parity. Making an exception and walking back on the policy only opens the door for future concessions.. and in a couple of years, games will ship without half of their content (and probably the ambitious half).

@Cikajovazmaj absolute nonsense. This is one game. Almost all games have released without an issue. It is a massive overreaction to act as if one game missing one minor feature (which could be a temporary missing feature) will mean that games will now be releasing with half their content missing.

Release it without da splitscreen! cmon ! nobody plays 50hours in splitscreen today...

@Lightning720 I wouldn't call it nonsense, I would call it a precedent. Especially as MS is backing this decision, after what feels like public pressure applied by a developer.

precedent - any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations.

There are no clear guidelines communicated by MS around what would be acceptable and what not.. which means any developer can try the same and use this case as an example, trying to steer public opinion in their favor.

I would rather be able to play a game without out split screen than not be able to play it at all

@Cikajovazmaj so i take it you were going to play baldurs gate 3 in split screen on your series S?

@Cikajovazmaj you are using "precedent" to leap from "one game misses one minor feature, possibly temporarily" to "many games will be missing half their major features".

That isn't precedent. That is using one event and massively overreacting and somehow using it to justify the existence of something that hasn't happened and based on what we know, will not happen.

@Lightning720 precedent is exactly what it is. It's precedent that it is OK to miss a feature and promise to possibly add it later.
I'm not saying it is going to be exploited, as I can not know that without a crystal ball... but just as in legal terms, it does establish that it has happened once and all future cases will be evaluated with that in mind. That is unavoidable.

@trev666 I will most definitely not!! I won't play BG3 at all, as it is not the type of game I'm interested in. But I will be keeping an eye on the health of my investment (XSS), though.

While dropping split screen for Series S specifically was the better option, it was a lose-lose situation whatever approach was taken.

• Dropping split screen for Series S -> there's now precedent that looking forward if you want the full experience of games you should not buy a Series S (it's no longer just a graphics and performance thing)
• Keeping the parity clause in place -> Series X owners miss out on loads of games over time because the Series S is holding it back

The only win to this situation would've been if in 2020 Microsoft announced a digital Series X instead of the Series S.

The amount of concern trolling I seen over this is baffling. Recently even saw someone try to claim this now means you can’t expect the same frame rate on Series S… when the Series S rarely offered the same frame rate options!!!

Some people just want to find a way to make Xbox look bad, no matter how ridiculous the argument.

This is good and all (as it should be) but I'll be waiting for a sale. I'll have Starfield anyways. That's gonna take me a long time.

@trev666 I agree that split screen is incredibly niche these days, especially in this genre, which is why I feel they should have dropped it in the XSX version of the game as well until it could be added to both consoles post launch. The benefit to XSX users is minute. The effect on the XSS hardware for the rest of the genration is massive. It can no longer be thought of as the same as XSX just with lower graphics settings. There will be doubt going forward, what games will cut what features on XSS? And this is because we needed... split screen on XSX at launch? Not worth it, at all.

@Grumblevolcano The problem with just "abandoning" Series S is that Microsoft, in order to not get huge amounts of backlash or potentially even legal action, is to do some kind of 1:1 value trade-in of a Series S towards this theoretical digital Series X.

But surely that digital Series X wouldn't be the same price as a Series S, so now the consumer has no choice but to now pay the difference.

It's a logistical and PR nightmare.

Now I know people are feeling like they have been lied to; but bear in mind, Microsoft can't determine every single instance.

When the engineers designed the Series S, I am sure they had input from a ton of developers and engine-makers to determine if it was something that would be viable for this generation - given the amount of flexibility within the PC space.

Microsoft doesn't have a magic ball.

I mean, maybe Microsoft shouldn't have promised parity - and that's on them. But, look, at the time of design, that seemed entirely possible - so I don't think it was a purposeful "lie".

@Lightning720

That's because games have been cross gen until recently.

@Tharsman

The new Naruto game even let's you block matchmaking with the Series S due to the 30fps cap on it.

You're only going to see this issue more and more as this generation continues.

I have a PS5 and a xbox series x. So i will play Baldurs gate 3 on the PS5, and the Starfield on the Xbox series x. 2 great games for the next few months.

Releasing BG3 without split screen on series S is the right call. It will be there eventually and xbox won't miss out on the highest rated game of the year.

This does not encourage developers to work around the Series S in the future. It does not set a precedent, xbox will rarely if ever approve this sort of thing again.

If anything it should encourage developers to notify MS right away and they can send help earlier.

The Series S is the majority of Xbox Series consoles. They will not abandon it or give up parity going forward.

@InterceptorAlpha there are definitely some games that haven't been cross gen that released perfectly well on Series S.

@Lightning720 Of course there are. Like Head Fi which will run on a toaster of a PC.

There will always be games, especially B-AA games that run fine on everything. That's hardly a metric to use when Historically it has been the big budge games that have issues.

@BacklogBrad We already have a game coming out that let's you disable matchmaking with the S due to its lower frame rate coming out soon. So I wouldn't bet on that.

@InterceptorAlpha I'm not sure where the parity issue is with Naruto matchmaking. You can still play online with a series S, you can still play with your friends if they are on Series X. Where exactly is the parity issue there?

Its not much different than turning off crossplay in CoD, etc. it is optional.

I just want a release date to look forward to. Just tell us when I'll be $70 less rich. Also Microsoft should drop a thick stack to get this on Gamepass and that would shut up anyone mad about Series S not having local co-op

@BacklogBrad Crossplay is wholly different as that let's you disable playing against people that have an advantage. PS5 has more accurate gyro aiming. And PC has mouse and keyboard.

This Is strictly to allow people to avoid players that are using a slower machines. Much bigger problem all together. Especially if it becomes a standard as this lumps the S in with the likes of the PS4 and Xbox One.

@InterceptorAlpha since this game is not crossplay between other platforms and there are more Series S in the wild, I think the incentive will be there to not use this option for Series X users. (I doubt this game sells well on xbox)

Regardless of all that this is not an example of missing parity between the consoles. All features are present on both versions.

The concerned trolling is getting out of hand

@Tharsman The double or in other case triple standards towards different consoles and their games have always been a thing. It isn't helped by the fact the more loyal console warriors can hardly be convinced by any logic or argument whatsoever.

@GamingFan4Lyf I mean, back when the console was revealed, there was a video of Jason Ronald explaining that the console has the same CPU and storage speed but the GPU and Ram are less, but again since the console targets a 1440p to 1080p output it should be no matter. But outside of that, the idea that people took, either because Xbox didn't make it clearer, or because Xbox also said so, was that everything else is a parity, including raytracing!?
But over time many games have ditched raytracing on S, and often times also avoided offering two graphical modes instead of one. All of which is understandable since you still get the same game with broadly the same experience, if the reflections in mirrors are less detailed, fine, you paid almost half the money of X for an S and you get half the experience.
I think the issue with BG3 really put a fly in the ointment however, as you are missing a key game mode. Similarly to how Halo Infinite ditched local co op because of X1 consoles and got a massive flack for it (among a bajillion other things that game got flack for 😂).

@Grumblevolcano I geninuely think if BG3 was not as popular and critically high-rated as it is, Xbox would have happily ditched it and let Larian skip their platform altogether.
I also don't think that Phil will organise 1-to-1 meeting with every developer out there that announces they can't make a feature work and figure out such solutions. At the end of the day, a single game, independent of its success and scale cannot really make or break a platform.
Also, suppose that Microsoft sends over some people to Larian and in 3 month there is a stable Split-screen working on Series S, at this point who is to blame? Larian's devs having inadequate skills or effort? Or Microsoft because they should assist every dev that gets stuck on a feature? Interesting food for thought.

Overreaction- yes!
Game coming in 2023 -yes!
Am I happy - Yes!