In the 30 days since Baldur’s Gate 3 was released for Xbox, players have been met with a couple of nasty bugs that didn’t affect PC or PlayStation players—but the nastiest of them all should be fixed by mid-January.
A Jan. 9 tweet from Larian Studios informed users that Microsoft has reached out to the developer stating the cause of the dreaded Xbox save bug has been identified, and that a patch resolving the issue will be available on Jan. 16. Larian further clarified that they have not been able to individually verify the fix, but that they’re confident Microsoft’s claim can be trusted. Now, maybe I’m reading into this too much, but that statement combined with some other unique phrasing in the original tweet has got my Spidey-Senses tingling.
All we know about the BG3 Xbox save bug is that there’s a chance your precious 200-hour save files can disappear without the possibility of recovery and that Microsoft is the only one who knows what caused this bug or how it can be fixed. This is confirmed in Larian’s reply about not being privy to the solution Microsoft will launch on Jan. 16, but some language in the original tweet also heavily implies the issue has something to do with the console itself and not the version of the game that Larian ported over to Xbox.
The original tweet plainly states that “you will be able to update your console manually” on Jan. 16 but does not mention anything about a patch for the game itself. In other words, it sounds an awful lot like the game itself has nothing to do with the issue.
The issue will reportedly be resolved utilizing a firmware update, which provides further evidence that the save bug is caused by Xbox consoles themselves and not by the game. Put simply, firmware is a specific type of software that enables hardware in a device to communicate and interact with other devices and software. In a lot of ways, firmware is similar to device drivers. As for why a firmware issue within Xbox consoles would be causing this save bug is up to people with a lot more tech savvy than myself to explain.
Many probably already know, but this save bug isn’t the only Xbox-specific problem that BG3 players have faced, as users have received Xbox Live account bans since Xbox automatically uploads all in-game clips taken by players to a public network. In response to that issue, Xbox Support only suggested that players navigate into their console settings on turn off the feature that is turned on by default if they want to avoid bans.
Here’s hoping BG3 fans on Xbox have these issues cleared up so they can get back to their adventuring.
