Baldur’s Gate 3 is already one of Steam’s biggest games ever

By James On Aug 7, 2023

Baldur’s Gate 3the Dungeons and Dragons-based role-playing game from Larian Studios peaked at 814,666 Steam players on Sunday – the ninth highest ever recorded on the platform.

According to to SteamDB numbers, Baldur’s Gate 3 stormed the all-time Steam charts over the weekend and moved Apex Legends out of the top 10. Despite the fact that the game has been available in early access form for years, the launch of the game on Thursday, August 3 created a wave of excitement and discussion that had increased dramatically in the previous weeks.

The magnitude of the game’s success surprised Larian – a Belgian developer who has an avid following for his detailed, specialized, very traditional RPGs in the Divinity series, but who has never enjoyed so much attention. “Probably should stay away from the IT team for a while,” says Larian’s founder and CEO Swen Vincke said this on Twitter on Fridayif Baldur’s Gate 3 cracked 500,000 concurrent players on Steam. “I told them to expect a maximum of 100,000 or so.”

Show official Steam numbers Baldur’s Gate 3‘s (current) peak player record of 814,666.

Image: Steam via Polygon

Remarkable, Baldur’s Gate 3 is now one of four paid single player games in Steam’s top 10 most played Cyberpunk 2077, Elder ringAnd Hogwarts legacy. The rest of the list consists of free-to-play multiplayer games. All four of these premium solo games have launched on Steam in the last three years – and three of them in the last 18 months.

They will likely be joined by a fifth on September 6 Star field has been released. Larian brought Baldur’s Gate 3‘s Steam is launching a month ahead specifically to avoid a clash with Bethesda’s sci-fi epic, a decision that seems to be paying off. The PlayStation 5 version, meanwhile, was pushed back a week to the same September 6 date, where it should be effective counter-programming for players unable to delve into Bethesda’s exclusive Xbox console.

But Xbox players may have to wait until 2024 to play Larian’s sleeper hit. That version will be delayed until Larian can get split-screen co-op working on the lower-spec Series S console — a “huge technical hurdle,” according to studio executive Michael Douse.