Baldur's Gate 3's physical Xbox release will run on four discs

Baldur's Gate 3 is getting a physical edition this spring, and it will now span four whole discs on Xbox. It was previously planned for three discs compared to the PlayStation 5's two.

Larian's publishing director Swen Vincke confirmed the number, calling it the best of a "very dynamic situation." The game's size is just a hair over the three-disc limit, and it was either this or cut some content, which he said "didn't make sense."

Games run on multiple discs because of limited storage capacity. The practice has been around for decades, and in Larian's case, speaks to how big Baldur's Gate 3 has become with its post-launch updates.

As a result of going from three discs to four, Vincke said the game's physical copies may begin releasing in April. "No discs makes life easy," he joked. "4 discs, hard!"

More games, more discs

This isn't the first time a game has had to run on multiple discs, not by a long shot. It used to be that some, like Everquest 2, were spread across 10 discs when they initially launched.

For consoles, one of the big multi-disc games was Final Fantasy 7 due to its FMV cutscenes. In the modern era, it became more pronounced with titles like Mass Effect 2 and Rage, whose Xbox 360 versions spanned two and three discs, respectively.

Some games have individual discs for single and multiplayer. But by and large, multi-disc games are a recurring part of the current games landscape, for better and worse.

At the very least, here's hoping Baldur's Gate 3 will have its discs labeled correctly.