Larian and Microsoft working to address 'annoying and uncool' Xbox account bans caused by the unfortunate combination of Baldur's Gate 3's notorious horniness and automatic gameplay uploads

Baldur's Gate 3 is a notoriously oversexed videogame, and that's causing headaches for some Xbox Series X-S owners who have found their accounts suspended after their consoles automatically uploaded gameplay clips of, as one redditor put it, "naked camp fun time."

Xbox rules state that even though a game is approved by Microsoft, gameplay clips might not be: "Content that you might find in mature and adult-rated games aren't always suitable for others to view on the Xbox network. We recommend sharing content that's rated Teen (T) at most." 

If a clip is determined to be inappropriate, it will be removed, and your ability to upload clips or screenshots may be suspended for a few days. "Especially egregious or repeat offences can lead to a temporary suspension, permanent ban or even device-related suspension," the Xbox support site says.

Enter Baldur's Gate 3, the game described by online editor Fraser Brown as "the horniest RPG I've ever played." (Yes, it's the one with the bear sex.) Odds are that if you've played it, you've done the horizontal mambo with someone at some point, and that's fine—the trouble is that Xbox consoles automatically upload recorded gameplay to remote servers by default, which apparently is not fine.

"I recorded three clips last night of some naked camp time fun," redditor Daddy-Vegas wrote last week. "Xbox, by default, uploads all recorded clips to the server for easy sharing. Each clip counted as a different infraction and got my account banned for a year. I'm hoping the appeals process fixes this, but as of now; I can't play any game that requires a network connection (Basically making all the money I put into MW3 over the last 6 months even more worthless)."

Daddy-Vegas said he received no warning about the impending ban, nor was he given a chance to remove the offending clips before the hammer fell. "I recorded the clips to download and send to my brother, playing it for laughs saying 'Well, I think I know a couple reasons BG3 won GOTY...' and sent him a clip of a cut scene in camp," they wrote. "But all the characters happened to be naked... including my Tav, which showed off the games' high mobility 'sausage physics'.

"I went to bed, and when I signed on after work the next day, I had a notice saying my account was suspended from using online features by Xbox Code Enforcement and I had to sign in on their website for more details and to appeal."

Daddy-Vegas isn't alone in their troubles: A handful of other redditors in the thread say they were also given suspensions for the same reason, while others say they'd been suspended in the past for uploading clips from games including Attack on Titan and The Witcher 3. The good news is that after an appeal, the ban was lifted and all related strikes removed. But the underlying issue itself—sexy gameplay uploads leading to bans—remains.

This isn't an entirely new thing. Shortly after Baldur's Gate 3 launched in August 2023, a number of Twitch streamers were surprised to discover that the game's "hide clothes" option means hide all the clothes. But as we noted at the time, Twitch allows for a little bit of leeway for in-game nudity (but definitely not the other kind) in the normal course of gameplay, and the unexpected flashes don't appear to have resulted in any suspensions. And of course while a Twitch account ban is no fun, it won't keep you from playing other games online, as an Xbox account ban does.

Xbox account bans caused by Baldur's Gate 3 sexy-time isn't a tremendously widespread issue, but it's enough of a problem that Larian is now on the case. "We’ve seen the reports that some players got banned or otherwise faced issues on Xbox having uploaded screenshots/videos of their 'gameplay content'," Larian director of publishing Michael Douse tweeted. "We’re in discussion with Microsoft, and we’re looking into it. Annoying and uncool."

It's not clear at this point what Larian has in mind for a possible fix, but Douse suggested that it might be trickier than it appears: In response to a user who suggested simply disabling auto-uploads when nudity is enabled, he tweeted, "'Simply just do X' in game dev language is a meme. It's not that simple." 

Work on that front is now proceeding: A day after Douse said Larian was aware of the issue, the studio said on Twitter that players impacted by the bans should be seeing them start to lift.

"Players whose capture clips have been flagged on Xbox should now see their bans begin to lift," Larian wrote. "Work is ongoing, and the Microsoft team is aware of the issue! If you’re wanting to upload any clips in the meantime, make sure to turn off mature content."

You can do that by switching off nudity in Baldur's Gate 3's options menu—or you can protect yourself across the board by turning off automatic uploads on your console.