Baldur’s Gate 3 had a stealth release on Xbox Series X|S after the game won the top prize at The Game Awards. The surprise Xbox launch is a great time for Series X|S console owners to jump into The Game Awards’ official Game of the Year, but is it available on Game Pass?
Can you play Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Game Pass?
Unfortunately, Baldur’s Gate 3 is not available on Xbox Game Pass. Unlike many games that are released on day one on Xbox Game Pass, Baldur’s Gate 3 is developed by Larian Studios, which has no official connection to Microsoft.
There’s no word on if/when Baldur’s Gate 3 could ever come to Game Pass, but there were some interesting leaks from Microsoft’s court case with the FTC over the company buying Activision-Blizzard. In one leaked document, Microsoft had a list of third-party games that it could potentially try to get onto Game Pass in 2022.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was on that list as an option, with Microsoft estimating that the game would cost around $5 million to get onto its service, though they didn’t appear to see the value at the time. Remember, this is way before anyone had any idea of what a monster success Baldur’s Gate 3 would become. To add some perspective, Microsoft estimated that Dying Light 2 would cost around $50 million.
In retrospect, Baldur’s Gate 3 on Game Pass for $5 million sounds like a steal, but we now live in a world where Baldur’s Gate 3 is The Game Awards’ Game of the Year, and it is one of the most played games of 2023. If it were to come to Game Pass in the future, Microsoft would certainly need to shell out a lot more than the company once believed.
