Hello everyone, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game has officially been out for a couple of days, and we'd like to extend a huge thanks to all of you for the feedback received so far. Everyone in the team is on deck, watching streams, videos, and reading your comments and reviews. We're happy to see many of you enjoying Expeditions and what it's trying to achieve, although we also are aware and understand that some of you aren't satisfied with the game's current state.

Our current priorities
Some of your most recurrent feedback is about UI/UX. We cannot overhaul it in one night, but this is a big focal point for the team right now, and it will be improved through several updates. Our first update releases with this message, to bring some immediate improvements. We're also hard at work on bug reports, and the March 7 patch brings a lot of fixes based on your feedback. Be assured that we'll continue to squash as many technical issues as we can in the coming updates. We've also noticed many requests for a photo mode in Expeditions, and we're glad to add it with today's update. It only needed a few extra days of cooking!

The Xbox Series version of Baldur's Gate 3 was at risk of being delayed into 2024, thanks to Microsoft enforcing a policy of feature parity across S and X consoles. Larian Studios is reportedly still struggling to get split-screen co-operative mode running on Xbox Series S hardware, even with deployment of first party assistance. Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of Larian Studios, discussed these technical issues with Microsoft Gaming's head honcho at Gamescom last week—their tête-à-tête resulted in a positive outcome: "Super happy to confirm that after meeting Phil Spencer yesterday, we've found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur's Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we've been working towards for quite some time." The game is due to launch—feature complete—on PlayStation 5 in early September, so Team Xbox appears keen to play catch up with its arch rival.

Vincke elaborated on the compromise: "All improvements will be there, with split-screen coop on Series X. Series S will not feature split-screen co-op, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series." A firm release date has not been confirmed yet, but the official Xbox Twitter account later revealed that Microsoft engineers are committed to collaborating with the game's development team and resolve technical hurdles: "To answer some questions we're getting, we'll continue to work with Larian to explore the addition of split-screen on Series S post launch."

Respawn Entertainment is actively recruiting for a new game project—the Los Angeles studio is looking to fill a "Principal Game Writer" position—the job description (posted on LinkedIn) hints that a sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is already in development: "We're looking for a highly skilled Principal Game Writer who will embrace our philosophy and share their hard-earned expertise to help us create an incredible Star Wars experience for our players in a fun, third-person action-adventure setting. We're picturing an avid gamer who is passionate about storytelling through interactive narratives. Under the direction of the Lead Writer, the Principal Game Writer will be responsible for writing dialogue, scenes, story treatments, and supporting text for the game."

A portion of the Star Wars Jedi fan base, particularly players on PC, will be questioning Respawn and EA's apparent swift decision to shift their priorities to the making of a sequel to Survivor. The second entry in the series released on multiple platforms back in late April, following a delay to address technical issues—the extra time allowance did not result in a perfect launch. The game debuted with major problems across PC and current generation consoles—with apologies and fixes appearing soon after. Respawn's latest patch—number six—was made available on June 20. We can assume that several departments (Art, Design, Production etc.) are not required to provide ongoing support for the current game since there are no announced plans for DLC, but fans would appreciate a continued stream of improvements issued by QA and software engineering staffers.

Larian Studios recently announced that the PlayStation 5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 is getting postponed by a week—from August 31 to September 6, with PC gamers happy to discover that they will be treated to an earlier release (adjusted to August 3). Xbox Series console owners were seemingly left out in the cold with last week's announcements—Larian is yet to confirm a solid launch date for current generation Microsoft systems. The studio admitted—earlier this year—that software engineers were struggling to get the split screen multiplayer mode in Baldur's Gate 3 running adequately on both Series X and S hardware: "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 (systems), which is a requirement for us to ship."

Microsoft apparently enforces a policy that locks gameplay feature parity across Xbox Series X and S, and Larian has continued to struggle with technical issues, albeit now isolated to the lesser console (not that helpful given the circumstances)—IGN contacted studio head Swen Vincke for comment about this situation. Other development outfits have expressed their disdain for Series S launch requirements, with calls to drop the system entirely—but IGN discovered that Vincke was reluctant to aim criticism at Microsoft, since first party assistance has been roped in: "We had support from the ATG group. They've been doing great. They've been helping a lot. Everybody wants this out on Xbox. It's not that we don't want it out on Xbox. It's just that, our problem—and this is us, Larian—is that we just made a very big game. And it's a very complicated game...We're also not a developer with an infinite (number) of resources. We are constrained in the amount of time each platform version is tested. The more permutations you start adding to it on a platform, the more complicated that becomes." Given the high profile nature of Baldur's Gate 3, it would be in both parties' interests to get a decent port out of the door, so it is encouraging that Microsoft is pitching in (perhaps to save face).

Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox Game Studios, appeared on the popular (Xbox-themed) Kinda Funny Games podcast earlier this week for a video interview (Xcast Episode 137). The almost 45-minute long conversation touched upon several topics relating to gaming matters at Microsoft, with the hosts managing to corner Spencer about the recent (not so good) launch of Bethesda and Arkane's horror FPS Redfall. Gaming community feedback has not exactly been encouraging in the wake of the game's release two days ago, and Spencer admits that he shares similar sentiments: "I'll just say all up, there's nothing that's more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community. I've been a part of it for a long time. I obviously work on Xbox, head of the business, have a lot of friends, get a lot of feedback. And just to watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I'm disappointed. I'm upset with myself. I revisit our process - I think back to the announcement of 60 FPS and then we weren't shipping 60 FPS, that was our punch in the chin, rightfully, a couple of weeks ago. And then seeing the game come out and the critical response was not what we wanted, and it's disappointing."

He continues his thought about reacting to feedback this early on in the process: "What can we learn? What can we get better? One thing I'll fight is what went wrong. There's clearly quality and execution things we can do, but one thing I won't do is push against creative aspirations of our teams. Then a lot of people will say, hey, you've got teams, teams know how to do one kind of game, just force them to go do the one kind of game they have a proven track record for. I'm just not a believer in that. Maybe that means I'll under deliver for some of our fans out there. But when a team like Rare wants to do Sea of Thieves, when a team like Obsidian wants to do Grounded, when Tango wants to go do Hi-Fi (Rush) when everybody probably thought they were doing The Evil Within 3, I want to give the teams the creative platform to go and push their ability, push their aspirations."