Baldur’s Gate 3 Will Not Be on Xbox Game Pass

Baldur’s Gate 3 will not be on Xbox Game Pass any time soon, according to Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke. In an IGN interview with the team, Vincke was asked about possible discussions with Microsoft to include the game on their service, which he insisted would not be happening. [Thanks, IGN!]

While Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on Xbox, Larian seems unwilling to put the game on Game Pass. According to Vincke, the reason is simple: it’s a big game with no microtransactions. Due to the development costs, he sees it as fair that anyone looking to play it pays for it up front. In return, they get a “big meaty game”. He also refrained from discussing any potential offers Microsoft may have made.

Despite the lack of a Game Pass release, Baldur’s Gate 3 did receive an Xbox release during The Game Awards 2023. While there was no announcement during the show itself, the game did appear on the Xbox store and its release was announced on social media. According to Vincke, the Xbox announcement was supposed to be part of his acceptance speech for Game of the Year. However, due to tight time limits, he ended up leaving it out. He also posted the full text of his intended speech on social media recently.

Outside of the Xbox questions, the IGN interview saw Vincke, plus lead writers Adam Smith and Chrystal Ding, talk about the various creative decisions for the game. They discussed the creative choices around the main cast and the game’s ending. He also talked a little about the process that led to them discovering the infamous slowdown glitch that stemmed from the game overloading its own memory usage by tracking every possible crime ever committed by the player. Both Vincke and Smith commended the programming team on their work in fixing this in Patch 5.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now for the PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.