Baldur’s Gate 3 is gunning for the top of the Steam charts with jaw-dropping stats

By Tomas Franzese August 4, 2023

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.

Steam charts show Baldur's Gate 3 at #3. — SteamDB

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.

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Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

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Baldur’s Gate 3: PS5 release dates, file size, preorder, and early access

A party of heroes stands on a cliff in Baldur's Gate 3.

If you've been patiently waiting for Baldur's Gate 3 to arrive on PlayStation 5 while PC players got an early start, you won't have to wait much longer, unlike Xbox players. By now you don't need us to tell you just how amazing this game has shaped up to be, and are more than likely already prepared with your choice of character and just waiting for the green light to finally dive into this massive CRPG. But if your excitement has gotten the better of you and you don't know exactly when Baldur's Gate 3 will be ready to play, how to preload, or even if you can get in on the game a little early, we've got you covered.
Baldur's Gate 3 release time

Baldur's Gate 3 will come out for all PS5 players officially on September 6 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET. Anyone who purchased the Digital Deluxe Edition gets 72 hours of early access, meaning you can start playing on September 3 instead.
Baldur's Gate 3 file size

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The best games of August 2023: Baldur’s Gate 3, Sea of Stars, and more

Laezel in Baldur's Gate 3

This August kicked off a packed game release lineup as we head into the latter part of 2023, including many games that I’d consider some of the year’s best. However, there was one thing all of this month's best titles shared in common: they were all single-player focused. While there seems to be a general stigma within the game industry that single-player games don’t sell as well or aren’t as engaging for players, August 2023’s best games stood in stark contrast to that.

Baldur’s Gate 3, a turn-based Dungeons & Dragons RPG currently on PC, is one of the year’s most-played games. It does have a cooperative mode, but it's entirely fulfilling as a single-player adventure. And those looking for more fantastic single-player adventure didn’t have a shortage of other games big and small to turn to once they beat that gigantic one.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 1 improves the game in over 1,000 ways

Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3.

Larian Studios released Patch No. 1 for Baldur's Gate 3 today, almost a month after launch and following several hotfixes. It brings over 1,000 gameplay improvements and bug fixes to the highly successful RPG.

Baldur's Gate 3 has been a massive success since its August 3 release on PC, but it definitely hasn't been free of bugs and some other weird quirks. Four hotfixes have addressed some of the most pressing issues, but these patches are much larger in scale when it comes to what they add and fix. Larian says Patch 1 is primarily focused on game balance and flow tweaks, as well as bug fixes. There's nothing too glamorous or game-changing, but it should make playing Baldur's Gate 3 an even smoother experience.
A couple of these fixes have to do with the game's romance system. A bug causing the conclusion to Shadowheart's romance to not activate properly has been fixed, and animations have been added so taller characters don't awkwardly kiss or hug shorter ones anymore. Fixes have been made in preventing bugs at the Morphic Pool, an issue where loot wouldn't appear on corpses in multiplayer, and some Game Over screens problematically appearing where they shouldn't have. There are way too many tweaks and bug fixes to list here, so we recommend going to the Baldur's Gate 3 website to check out the full list.
Unfortunately, game performance improvements aren't part of Patch 1, as Larian Studios is saving those for Patch 2. But it says that we "won’t be waiting long" for those. Baldur's Gate 3 is available now for PC, comes to PlayStation 5 on September 6, and will launch on Xbox Series X/S before the end of the year.