Xbox Is Banning Players For Taking Baldur’s Gate 3 Clips

Baldur's Gate 3 Dragonborn promo screenshot

Baldur’s Gate 3 was one of the biggest and best games of 2023, and while it took quite some time to make it to Xbox Series X|S after its release on PC and PS5, it’s finally here. Unfortunately, Xbox players are finding they’re copping bans, and Xbox has confirmed that Baldur’s Gate 3 is to blame. Kind of.

Last week, Baldur’s Gate 3 players started noticing they were getting banned from some features on Xbox, including sharing and saving images online. Affected players were sent notices by Microsoft saying that their images and videos uploaded from their Xbox consoles were in breach of Microsoft and OneDrive’s terms of service.

The main issue seems to be screenshots and clips that include sexually explicit content and, well, Baldur’s Gate 3 certainly does have quite a bit of that. There are the sex scenes of course, but even the character creation screen lets you view and customize genitals, which aren’t particularly details, but are genitals nonetheless.

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios said it would work with Xbox to try and resolve the issue, but in the meantime, Xbox Support has confirmed the bans and said players could appeal suspensions if actions were taken in error.

“To provide clarity on Baldur's Gate 3 mature content enforcement actions, Xbox account suspensions are not automatic,” Xbox wrote in a tweet, “Each clip is reviewed by a moderator and, if found in violation of our safety and content policies, actioned accordingly. Our team evaluates appeals and can reverse suspensions if action was taken in error. If this was a first offense, for example, we will remove the suspension and let players know why it happened and how to avoid future issues.”

Xbox says that players can avoid the bans by turning off automatic uploads which is a bit of an annoying solution, all things considered. Xbox players shouldn’t be penalized for using a console feature that’s on by default, especially when playing games sold on the Xbox store. Surely, if the content is suitable enough for Microsoft to sell – and make money off – it should also be suitable for Microsoft to host on its servers, where players have to actively choose to share it.

It’s all just very dumb, and hopefully Larian’s talks with Microsoft pan out into something that doesn’t get players banned for using the features that come on their consoles.

Related: Here’s How To Fix Baldur’s Gate 3’s Incompatible Save Error