Baldur's Gate 3 will get a physical PlayStation 5 version in Japan

When Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate III comes to the PlayStation 5, Japanese players will be able to buy a boxed version of the game. 

Originally spotted by Gematsu, the hit RPG will have its physical edition published by Spike Chunsoft over in Japan. In the past, the developer has handled domestic publishing duties for a variety of western games such as 2015's The Witcher 3 and Disco Elysium: The Final Cut in 2022. 

Several games releasing towards the end of 2023, like Alan Wake II and Like a Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name, will have digital-only releases, either globally or in the west specifically. As such, it makes Baldur's Gate III somewhat notable to be receiving a disc-based version. 

Thus far, Japan is the only known country to get a physical copy of Baldur's Gate III on PS5. It's solely available on the PlayStation Store everywhere else, or on Larian's store via the PS5 collector's edition. At time of writing, it's unknown if Spike will similarly publish the game in Japan whenever its eventual Xbox Series X|S version releases.

It's worth noting, though, that both Divinity Original Sin II and its predecessor came out on consoles years after their original respective releases. So it may be that Larian will do a boxed PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series version when the game's been all patched and fixed up to the best possible state. 

In the two weeks since its release, Baldur's Gate III has become extremely popular on Steam, having conjured over 800,000 concurrent players in a handful of days. Larian founder Swen Vincke admitted that the game's reception was an honest surprise to him. 

Even so, the game has stepped into some controversies, particularly in regards to properly crediting translators in Brazil. Altagram, the localization company responsible for crediting translators (or lack thereof, in this case) pledged to properly credit everyone in a future update for the game.