While Baldur’s Gate 3 is already available on Xbox, don’t expect it to be on Game Pass. The founder of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, has explained in an interview with the website IGN why the absolute winner of The Game Awards will not be part of Xbox’s subscription service.
“Oh, we always said from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be on Game Pass, it’s not going to be on Game Pass,” Vincke said when asked if Xbox had tried to pay the studio to put Baldur’s Gate 3 on the service.
Describing it as a “delicate question,” Vincke pointed out that Larian Studios is dedicated to “making a game that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.” He also referred to the absence of microtransactions in Baldur’s Gate 3, which has been praised by many users.
“We have made a great game, so I think we should charge a fair price for it, and I think that’s fine. We don’t have microtransactions, so you get what you pay for. From the beginning, it’s a big and substantial game. So I think it should be able to exist as it is. This is what allows us to continue making other games,” says Vincke.
And Vincke is not at all off track with his statements. According to the statistics published by Larian Studios in early December, the accumulated time of all Baldur’s Gate 3 players is 452,556,984 hours, which is equivalent to 51,662 years (more than the entire history of human civilization). Yes, the players have been quite entertained.
Vincke’s tough stance against including Baldur’s Gate 3 in Game Pass contrasts with the situation of Starfield, which has been available on the subscription service since its launch (something logical, considering that Bethesda, the developing studio, is owned by Microsoft). More than 11 million players enjoyed Starfield until the end of October, a number that has surely increased considerably since then.
