Baldur’s Gate 3 left early access and officially launched on August 3, and it’s seeing an unprecedented level of success. At the time of writing, the peak player count for the game is hovering around 537, 000, according to data from SteamDB.
Baldur’s Gate 3 saw steady growth in player count ahead of its early access launch in recent weeks, and that player count number has only continued to skyrocket. Right now, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the third most concurrently played game on Steam. The only games Baldur’s Gate 3 is lagging behind are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA 2, two popular multiplayer games with massive communities. PUBG: Battlegrounds, the game in fourth place, is around 200,000 players behind Larian Studios’ latest.
For a game that is from the fairly niche CRPG genre, has been gestating in early access for years, and hasn’t been as zeitgeisty as other 2023 RPGs like Starfield, these numbers are ridiculously impressive. For reference, SteamDB lists the all-time peak for Larian Studios’ previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, at 93,701. Then, if you want to look at older games in the Baldur’s Gate series, the all-time peak player count for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition on Steam was 3,756 players, while the all-time peak for Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition was only 2,644.
This is a massive win for single-player games and RPGs, showing that there are plenty of people who still care for and want to play great games in that style. It’ll be exciting to see how far up this concurrent player count could go. Will it reach the heights of games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available now for PC. It will also launch for PS5 on September 6.
