Xbox Game Pass seems to add Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2
Update (Jan. 3, 2024): This is a curious one! Xbox Game Pass subscribers have once again received an app notification about Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 joining the line-up of available games (via True Achievements), even though they were not among the announced Xbox Game Pass titles coming to the service in January 2024.
If you remember, the same thing already happened back in August 2023 (see the original article below) without the games ever materializing on the service. Either there are some massive issues with the games behind the scenes that have prevented them from being announced once again, or someone at Xbox really likes trolling people.
Original (Aug. 2, 2023): While Baldur's Gate 3 is unlikely to come to Xbox Series X|S before 2024 due to issues with certain features, Microsoft still wants players to have easy access to a healthy dose of D&D action – it looks like Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 will be added to Xbox Game Pass.
Game Pass Tracker reported this based on the screenshot of a phone notification sent in by a fellow subscriber to the service. The notification is in German and reads: “Attention, new games! Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 are here!” The original phrasing in German suggests that both titles are already available, so it’s reasonable to expect the two games to become part of the subscription service fairly soon.
Baldur's Gate was developed by the RPG experts at BioWare and released in 1998, its sequel followed in 2000. Both titles were critically acclaimed and are some of the best titles the CRPG genre has to offer. Enhanced Editions for both games, which made them compatible with newer hardware and added some quality-of-life improvements expected from modern titles, came out later to make them available to a younger audience.
While you won’t have to know anything about the events in its two predecessors, Larian Studios’ Baldur's Gate 3 makes many references to what happened in these games. There is, of course, another very obvious thing all three titles have in common: They are all centered around the city of Baldur's Gate, which in the newest game is being portrayed in loving detail and on an incredible scale that would have been unthinkable back when the originals were made.
You could certainly do worse than playing through Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 as you wait for Larian to finish the Xbox Series X|S version, all the more when you’re already subscribed to Xbox Game Pass anyway.
