Baldur’s Gate 3 physical Xbox release takes us back in time with four discs

Now we just need a 300-page manual

As if playing a sensational CRPG from the Baldur’s Gate franchise wasn’t old-school enough, it’s been confirmed that the physical release of Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox Series X will include a total of four discs – they better not muck up the labels like Sony did for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

Larian Studios’ Michael Douse, the director of publishing at the Belgian developer, stated that the game was just 500MB over the limit for three discs, thus the “only option would have been to cut some content out but that didn’t make sense.”

The physical release for Baldur’s Gate 3 on PS5 features two discs, but that doesn’t mean that the upcoming Xbox Series X version will be twice as good – Sony simply uses discs with more storage space than Microsoft. The PC version will simply contain a single disc with an installer and a product key on it, so Baldur’s Gate 3 won’t actually be on the storage device.

BG3's physical edition is looking better and better on Xbox: You get one more disc for the same price / Larian Studios

Larian has confirmed plans for two waves of physical releases for all three platforms, with the first wave already being sold out. It plans on shipping the products featured in this wave out in Q1 2024, but Douse said that the last-minute changes on the Xbox version may result in a slight delay of shipments for the Microsoft console into April.

Douse confirmed that Larian will send out each platform’s physical edition as they are ready with PC being up first. “No discs make life easy. Four discs hard,” he summed up the situation.

Having so many discs in a box really takes you back a few years, huh? Now all that’s missing is a 300-page instruction manual, a tome filled with knowledge and cool artwork. Heck, the original Baldur’s Gate 2 box had a booklet that essentially taught you how to play Dungeons & Dragons with all the core rules of the version the game was based on, which was pretty neat.

Let’s not completely disregard the benefits of the modern, digital age of game, though: Using the Xbox mobile app, you can already pre-load Baldur’s Gate 3 on your console ahead of time, even if you don’t technically own the game just yet. This will save you a lot of time when the box finally arrives at your place, which is likely going to be in April 2024.

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