Baldur’s Gate 3 Devs Reveal a Promising Update on Xbox Series S Port

November 10, 2023

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios dropped a positive and impressive update on its Xbox Series S port.

Larian Studios’ founder and CEO Swen Vincke posted a side-by-side comparison to X/Twitter. According to the update, the team optimized the system to significantly reduce RAM and VRAM loads in Baldur’s Gate 3. The graphs, depicting progress from September to November of this year, show the usage numbers dropped from 3.5GB VRAM and 5.2GB RAM down to 2.3GB and 4.7GB in the last month.

Got a nice present from our engineers. Ensuring memory is well under control and having buffer for peaks was the main thing holding us back I think this will benefit all platforms too. Still some work left but very close now. pic.twitter.com/xvtUDPFebo
— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) November 8, 2023

Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox Series S Port Update

It’s unclear what Larian did to achieve the impressive result. Earlier this year, Microsoft allowed the developer to break its normal parity requirement for the Xbox Series X and S. While the two usually run the same games, the Series S has significantly weaker RAM — 10GB compared to the Series X’s beefier 16GB. As a result, certain processes must run at a lower resolution to function correctly on the Series S.

However, Baldur’s Gate 3’s system requirements made that unworkable. At launch, parts of Baldur’s Gate 3 even struggled to run correctly on the bigger Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Previously, Larian confirmed it would remove the split-screen co-op from Series S, something it could not make work with the console’s configuration. However, the developer left the door open for it to appear on the Series S in the future. Larian has not stated whether it removed anything else from the game for now to make it playable on the Series S.

Last month, Vincke confirmed that Larian still planned to release the Xbox Series S port by the end of 2023. Baldur’s Gate 3 first released in early access in October 2020. In August 2023, Larian launched the full version for PC. The PlayStation 5 port had some optimization issues that delayed its release until early September.

Julia Anderson is a freelance writer and editor. A lifelong gamer and bookworm, she spent most of her childhood either glued to a novel or the computer. As a teen, she found herself deeply embedded in the fan fiction community and discovered her talent for writing and editing. Since then, she's run her own freelance writing and editing business, Anderson Wordsmith. When she isn't reading or playing D&D, RPGs, or stealth-based games, Julia is usually found imitating old age: drinking herbal tea in her favorite chair, crocheting, and watching a Shakespeare or Jane Austen adaptation with her faithful dog, Ben.