In a surprise move mere days before Xbox Games Showcase 2025, Xbox has just shadow-dropped Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Editions into the Xbox Game Pass library. Nearly a year and a half after prematurely teasing their arrival via the app.
Back in January 2024, Xbox mistakenly sent out notifications via the Game Pass app claiming both games were being added to the service. That turned out to be a false alarm, until now. With zero fanfare, both titles are now officially available on Xbox Game Pass for console and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 now available on Xbox Game Pass and Cloud gaming
The first two Baldur's Gate titles were developed by Bioware, not Larian who are responsible for Baldur's Gate 3.
Released originally in 1998 and 2000 respectively, Beamdog later enhanced them in 2012 and 2013, and it's these enhanced versions that have found their way to Xbox Game Pass. Note that these are available on console only.
Both editions come with bug fixes, UI updates, extra characters and quests and various gameplay improvements, and you can also access them on Xbox Cloud Gaming (so PC players can play via this),
The games offer over 100 hours of content, plus the Sword Coast, Siege of Dragonspea,r and Throne of Baal expansions.
Should I play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2?
When the first game was released, it was a genre-defining RPG that bought Dungeons and Dragons to life in a way nobody had before.
The game had complex branching dialogue, tactical combat and even multiplayer LAN options before that was a common practice. Baldur's Gate 2 cranked everything up a notch with more complex combat, tougher enemies, higher levels and more companions (and more romance options too). It won a ton of awards and is stil often listed among the greatest RPGs of all time.
If you enjoyed Baldur’s Gate 3, and by extension the Dungeons and Dragon's Universe, you may well enjoy these two games but be aware they are much older and use different rulesets to Larian's title (so use 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragon's ruleset rather than 5th Edition).
You'll also come across some familiar characters and areas, as while Baldur's Gate 3 is it's own standalone story it does make a bunch of references back to the original 2 games. If you want to experience the amazing stories and characters that came before, these 2 games give you context for the world and deepen your appreciation for Baldur’s Gate 3.
Could Baldur's Gate 3 come to Xbox Game Pass?
Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king. But it’s going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way. https://t.co/wEUvd5adt0January 17, 2024
I've already seen some speculation that this could indicate that Baldur's Gate 3 will also come to Xbox Game Pass, but Larian have been clear in the past that they prefer to sell their games outright rather than offer them through subscription services.
While I would never say never, I highly doubt this will happen in the foreseeable future, at least while Baldur's Gate 3 is still selling like hot cakes.
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