Baldur’s Gate 3 is still coming to Xbox Series X|S, but Microsoft initially didn’t think it was worth the money for a Game Pass deal. The news comes from a cache of unredacted Xbox documents that a Microsoft employee reportedly uploaded to a federal court website, and in this one, Microsoft outlined a number of prospects for Game Pass deals and Xbox leaders’ thoughts on them, including BG3 and Assassin’s Creed Mirage (thanks, Polygon).
The table of prospects lists Baldur’s Gate 3 as a “second-run Stadia PC RPG” and estimated that developer Larian would request a $5 million deal to launch the game on Game Pass. Larian did originally position Baldur’s Gate 3 as a Stadia flagship, before Google shut its cloud-streaming platform down.
Dismissing Baldur’s Gate 3 seems like a serious oversight in light of its substantial success on PC and PS5, but Michael Douse, the studio’s head of publishing, said that he understood why Xbox considered the game unimportant. Even Larian didn’t realize it would be that popular, even after the er, bear-filled Baldur’s Gate romance tease.
In their defence, so did everyone else. Same with DOS2. Comes with the genre, and the way we approach things, and the way we execute things. There just isn’t any existing data that could have told anyone how BG3 was going to perform. We just had to take giant spooky leaps. https://t.co/BgLyW4cZZx
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) September 19, 2023
“Same with [Divinity Original Sin 2],” Douse said on Twitter. “Comes with the genre, and the way we approach things, and the way we execute things. There just isn’t any existing data that could have told anyone how BG3 was going to perform. We just had to take giant spooky leaps.”
The same document also showed that Xbox considered a deal for Red Dead Redemption 2 on Game Pass, with notes about the expected $5 million per month request and concerns about the PC version. Xhox believed Assassin’s Creed Mirage would’ve cost $100 million, and there’s a cheeky note at the bottom that says “Also… more Ubi?” That’s possibly a reference to the many Ubisoft games already on Game Pass at the time, though it seems a little ironic now, considering the deal Xbox and Ubisoft reached to connect your Ubisoft+ subscription to Game Pass.
Only two games on the list were definitely out of reach in Microsoft’s view. One was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which Xbox believed would run them at least $300 million, if EA even considered the deal. The sheet has a note saying “Crown Jewel. They won’t do.” The other was Mortal Kombat Next, presumably what ended up becoming the Mortal Kombat 1 reboot. Xbox called it another “Crown Jewel” and said a “change of guard” at Discovery made a Game Pass deal highly unlikely.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF