Baldur's Gate 3 is, terrifyingly, more than two years old. It is also, remarkably, still hanging out in the top 20 most-played games on Steam despite being a single-player RPG (with co-op, I realize), and of the crunchy kind, not long ago feared by many large publishers as too out there, too esoteric, too D&D to find mass appeal.
As is often the case with PC-first, single-player games, that longevity is largely thanks to the game's modding community, and so developer Larian has kicked off December with a round of applause for the best Baldur's Gate 3 mods around.
According to the studio's latest community update blog post, Baldur's Gate 3 has surpassed 350 million mod downloads and 10,000 mods uploaded. Larian CEO Swen Vincke basks in this news on Twitter: "The numbers get crazier every time I look. 350 million mod downloads and counting. Way more than we ever expected."
Vincke also makes an appearance in a short, unlisted video embedded in the post. "This is insane," he reiterates. "From giant bunnies to giant – not going to do that," he pauses, seemingly tipping his Santa hat to one of the best-known mods called out in the blog post: Withers Big Naturals, which gives Withers big naturals.
"It's absolutely amazing. So, you should give yourselves a pat on the back, have a shot of whiskey, and go have a party," he adds.
The highlighted mods may sound familiar if you've kept up with Larian's community curating. Withers' augmentation needs no introduction, nor does Bunnies Gate 3, a mod which adds gigantic bunnies into the game world. Pool Floaties makes essential swimming headgear available to the party, Owlbear Beanie adds real merch into the game, and Handsome Astarion attempts the impossible: making Astarion more handsome.
I actually hadn't heard of Car Wildshape before this post – a sort of Greaser Druid mod that lets you shapeshift into "Carlach, Gale Decarios, Ascarion, Shadowkart, Vehicwyll, Lane'zel – or the whole fleet" and kill enemies the GTA way, with burning rubber. Thank goodness that hole in my life has been filled.
