Baldur’s Gate 3 finally dropped on the PS5 last night, and with that developer Larian Studios has confirmed that cross-play will be coming to the game eventually. Speaking to Eurogamer, director of publishing Michael Douse claimed that cross-platform co-op has always been on the roadmap, but the team never planned it as a launch feature. Just like the tabletop roleplaying game it’s based on (Dungeons & Dragons), Baldur’s Gate 3’s immersive story can be enjoyed with friends in online co-op, albeit for now it is limited to those on the same platform/ system.
“It was always in the planning,” Douse said in the interview. “But we knew it wouldn’t be for launch. It’s in the roadmap, and though we have an idea of when we’d like to get it ready for, we don’t want to put a date on it until we’re sure.” Both the PC and the PS5 versions also come with support for split-screen co-op, in addition to cross-saves. The latter makes it so you can carry over your progression between either platform, though only the last five save files will be synced. Additionally, using any mods on the PC version will make its saves incompatible with PS5 when switching over. It’s unclear if this rule is limited to third-party mods only, considering Larian recently promised to bring their own modding support/ tools in the future.
But before Larian gets to any of that, I’m guessing the team will be focused on fixing any bugs and expanding Baldur’s Gate 3’s epilogue with new cinematics. The first of such changes went live last week with patch #2, which added a new optional ending for the cheerful Tiefling Karlach, whose arc previously ended in misery. In other news, the studio’s CEO Swen Vincke confirmed that BG3’s characters came across as too horny because of a programming bug, which caused some companions like the wizard Gale to instantly fling themselves at the player. Romances in the game function on an approval system, where a party member’s interest in you is dependent on the way you interact with the world. However, Vincke notes that at launch the approval thresholds were set too low, and they’ve been fixing it ever since.
Amidst all this, Larian is also working on an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3, which is scheduled for later this year. The Xbox Series S/X would likely come with cross-play support as well, but it’s worth mentioning that split-screen co-op is limited to the more expensive Xbox Series X. The studio was struggling to incorporate the feature on the less-expensive Xbox Series S due to its lack of memory, which makes it difficult to render too much activity on the same screen/ system. That said, Larian and the team at Xbox will still explore ways to include split-screen co-op on the lower-end system post-launch, though no promises were made.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on PC and PS5, while the Xbox Series S/X version is slated for launch sometime this year.