Gab Hernandez 
Baldur’s Gate 3 took a long time to finally come out on Xbox and when it finally did, Microsoft celebrated by banning a large number of those who played it.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was the darling of the gaming world in 2023. After dominating The Game Awards, Baldur’s Gate 3 continues to rank in the top 10 most-played games on Steam months after release, a rare feat for a single-player game. Xbox players were aching to head to Faerun even if the Game Pass dream didn’t come to fruition but were left outside looking in due to technical issues delaying the game’s port.
The game eventually came out but unfortunately, players who have successfully romanced Astarion, or anyone else, may want to take advantage of the game’s cross-save capabilities. Microsoft has been mass-banning Baldur’s Gate 3 players for initially unclear reasons. Players have since realized they were being banned for explicit clips uploaded from their accounts. The worst part is they didn’t even know they were doing it.
Why is Xbox banning Baldur’s Gate 3 players?
Xbox accounts that automatically upload explicit clips from Baldur’s Gate 3 are being banned by Xbox Support.
While it’s been shown many times over that players will find ways to create explicit content in games and distribute it if possible, that’s not what has been going on here. While uploading explicit content is a bannable offense on Xbox, the auto-upload feature is turned on by default. Players who happen to bring a romance in the game past a certain point with this enabled were given an automatic ban.
Despite Xbox’s promises of a more effective ban system in 2023, the support team wasn’t able to handle this situation cleanly. Xbox Support posted on social media that these account suspensions “are not automatic” and are manually reviewed by a moderator. Given how many false flags were reported by both players and Larian Studios, this leads many to believe Xbox is simply trying to save face.
Is Baldur’s Gate 3 censored on Xbox?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is not censored on Xbox.
Despite Xbox’s shaky handling of the situation, Baldur’s Gate 3 can be experienced in all its glory, censorship-free. This is good news, because not having access to explicit content may hamper the hunt for Xbox achievements for Baldur’s Gate 3. Regions such as Japan are an exception, as they have blanket bans on explicit content across all platforms for the game.
While the entire situation is amusing, it does shine a light on how unprepared Xbox was to handle what should have been an obvious problem. Some fans have suggested that M-rated clips should not be viewable at all if family settings were set that way. Others just want Xbox to have the auto-upload feature turned off by default, to minimize misunderstandings. Regardless, those looking to romance their party in Baldur’s Gate 3 better be cautious when doing so on Xbox.
