Baldur's Gate 3's first-ever physical release is coming this December, following on from its digital-only launch in August and September. Right now, the physical release is only scheduled for Japan, but it's a sign that a boxed version of the game is on Larian's mind.

This will make Japan the only region to have a physical version of Baldur's Gate 3. It's set to launch in the country on December 21 of this year, so it might be worth keeping an eye on, in case it ends up being packaged with the English voice lines as well as the Japanese localisation.

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The Japanese release of Baldur's Gate 3 had already been announced, but we just got a release date and a new trailer today. As spotted by Gematsu, there's still no word on whether we'll get a physical copy in other countries, or if this release will have English language support.

As per Larian itself, the wording suggests that the Japanese localisation will be added to preexisting copies of Baldur's Gate 3. With this in mind, that hopefully means there will be no real difference between a digital copy bought in the West and a physical copy bought in Japan, other than that the latter may default to Japanese. Of course, that's just guesswork based on how the announcement is worded, so certainly don't place any orders based on that until it's confirmed.

When Baldur's Gate 3 launched on PC in early August and PS5 in early September, it joined other new games opting to skip a boxed release altogether. Alan Wake 2 is another example, going digital-only on all platforms. In the case of Baldur's Gate, it wasn't as surprising though, given that its huge success has come as a surprise to many, including its developers. Even gaming giants like Xbox underestimated the RPG, offering Larian a relatively small $5 million payout to put the game on Game Pass. As we now know, Larian declined and even skipped Xbox altogether at launch due to issues with getting the game on the Series S.

We've contacted Larian to see if it has any plans for a physical release outside of Japan, and will update this report should we receive a response. But for now, the only way to play Baldur's Gate 3 is to pick it up digitally on either PlayStation 5, or PC via Steam and GOG. It's coming to Xbox sometime this year, but we don't know when that will be yet, or if this will also be a digital-only release.

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