Baldur’s Gate 3 Was Underestimated by Microsoft (and Even Larian) Leading up to Release

As part of the recent leaks from the Microsoft’s legal tussle with the United States Federal Trade Commission, an email indicates that Microsoft had underestimated the success Baldur’s Gate 3 would see on release.

As caught by IGN, in an email chain discussing potential third-party games that could be brought to Game Pass, Microsoft executives referred to the at-the-time-unreleased Baldur’s Gate 3 as a “second-run Stadia PC RPG”. The email chain indicated that Microsoft would be able to pay developer Larian $5 million to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Game Pass on release.

In an interesting twist, Larian Studios director of publishing Michael Douse took to social media platform X to reveal that the studio itself had similarly underestimated the success that Baldur’s Gate 3 would see.

“There just isn’t any existing data that could have told anyone how BG3 was going to perform,” said Douse. “We just had to take giant spooky leaps.”

Baldur’s Gate 3 was released on PC earlier this year after spending quite some time as an early access title. The game also saw a release on the PS5 this month. For more details, check out our review.

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