Baldur’s Gate 3 has become one of the most played video games ever just days after its official launch, despite not being available on consoles.
At its peak, the epic fantasy game attracted a whopping 814,666 concurrent PC players on digital games platform Steam.
That makes it the ninth biggest game ever on the service, and more popular than monstrous hits like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Apex Legends and Valheim.
Just as impressive is the fact that those numbers are holding steady: Over the past 24 hours, the game is the third most played on Steam with 707,445 concurrent players. The only titles ahead of it are mainstays Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the latest installment in the long-running video game series based on Dungeons & Dragons. In our glowing review, we hailed it as “a stone-cold classic RPG, looking back to the oldest traditions, with a Game of Thrones budget and state-of-the-art tech”.
In the leadup to its release, the game was already garnering hype for its intricate character customisation system and sprawling storylines. It also can’t hurt that Stranger Things and the Dungeons & Dragons movie have helped to revive interest in the cult tabletop game.
Many fans will have already sampled Baldur’s Gate 3, which has been available to preview since last October on PC, Mac, and even Google’s now-defunct Stadia game streaming service. The writing was already on the wall when it became the best-selling game on both Steam and fellow digital storefront GOG.com on the day of its early access launch.
The game’s success on PC also appears to be positively impacting its console release. It recently topped the PlayStation Network pre-order chart ahead of the likes of Spider-Man 2 and EA Sports FC 24. Baldur’s Gate 3 will arrive on PS5 on September 6, with an Xbox Series S/X launch planned for an as-yet-unknown date.
