Xbox’s strict community standards have been getting Baldur’s Gate 3 players banned this week, with unlucky players being whacked with suspensions if they share videos or screenshots of mature sexual content—and if you’ve ever played BG3, you’ll know there’s quite a bit.
It’s no secret BG3 was the best game of 2023, with the title still going very strong six months after release. Now that BG3 is finally available on Xbox, players are diving in to experience the dice roll combat, making questionable life or death choices, and enjoying their time with their unique and opinionated romanceable companions; the last of which can be pretty raunchy. Depending on who you romance, it can push the boundaries of what’s considered the ‘norm.’ And, apparently, if you share that raunchy content on Xbox, you’re in for a ban.
Players have been reporting all manner of platform and profile bans, according to Kotaku, after playing through some of the steamier BG3 scenes. Some have even suggested that just having players appear in their birthday suits is enough to draw the Xbox banhammer.
But the real kicker here is Xbox’s default setting for saving footage means it will automatically be uploaded to the server. Even if it was by accident, if the footage goes against its standards, you will be banned. And it gets worse because there’s no way to turn off this default save feature. The only way you can stop it is if you play in offline mode, but that’s not a long-term solution.
The need for these standards is understandable. However, on the flip side, this is content from a ‘Mature-rated’ game and part of the character’s and companion’s storylines. So, if someone wants to document their time enjoying all the pleasures Faerun has to offer, they should be able to. It would be great if there were a way to flag content as ‘mature’ when we take screenshots and clips so Microsoft knows these images should be censored on our Activity Feeds. Sadly, Activity Feeds have no age restrictions, but this situation proves there should be.
So, even if you really want to, think twice before taking a clip or screenshot of these raunchy BG3 scenes on Xbox because you will get banned, even if it’s accidental.
