Baldur’s Gate 3 was stealth-dropped onto Xbox Series X|S during The Game Awards last night, and it seems like this is because Larian Studios’ CEO Swen Vincke forgot to make the announcement. Vincke was meant to mention the release during an award acceptance speech, but he failed at his “one job” and left several people confused in the process.
Baldur’s Gate 3 had won 6 awards even before its Xbox release
Baldur’s Gate 3 did very well at The Game Awards, taking home six accolades. As well as Game of the Year, the RPG won Best Community Support, Best RPG, Player’s Voice, Best Multiplayer, and a Best Performance award for Astarion actor Neil Newbon. Not all of the awards came with the chance to make an acceptance speech, but Vincke was still supposed to mention the Xbox release during one of them. As explained in his Tweet later, he forgot.
The length of acceptance speeches at The Game Awards has attracted a fair amount of criticism this year. Many people felt that the amount of time allocated to the speeches was far too short and didn’t allow the winners to make their point properly. Vincke did thank the team at Larian Studios for their dedication to developing the game, especially during Covid. He also Vincke dedicated the Game of the Year award to “lost” Larian team members, such as cinematic animation lead Jim Southworth who lost his battle with cancer last month.
What also likely didn’t help was that Vincke was dressed in a rather distracting suit of armor. The CEO had a bet with Lead Writer Adam Smith that he would attend the show in the armor if the latter wore a bear suit throughout the show. Writer Chrystal Ding also seemed to be dressed as a chipmunk.
