Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studio’s latest RPG, launched on PC on August 3 after spending some time in Early Access. Already, there are signs that the game has had a monumentally successful launch.
The SteamDB charts reveal that Baldur’s Gate 3 hit a peak of 472,136 within 24 hours, giving it the second-biggest Steam launch of 2023. It has since clung onto a steady player count and continued rising today, August 4. Baldur’s Gate 3 has also been performing well on Twitch, where it reached a massive peak of 481,523 views on launch day at an average of around 156k (via StreamCharts).
Baldur’s Gate 3 arrives with a bang
Originally slated for an August 31 release, Baldur’s Gate 3 was pushed up to August 3 for PC players. It has overtaken Sons of the Forest, which hit a peak of 414,257 players at launch, to become the second-biggest Steam launch of 2023. Only Hogwarts Legacy sits ahead of it, and with a peak of 879,308 at launch, it will take a lot to defeat it. The game’s success can also be illustrated when looking at its download stats on Steam where the total bandwidth used on it skyrocketed to 146.3 Tbps.
Steam rocking 59.3 Tbps right now in NA. Folks thirsty for Baldur's Gate. pic.twitter.com/Dg4M7DfkUe
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) August 3, 2023
Baldur’s Gate 3 has “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews on Steam, where it joins an exclusive club of games that have gained over 450,000 concurrent players at launch. Hogwarts Legacy is the only other title to achieve this feat in 2023. In 2022, Elden Ring managed to do this, while New World entered the club upon release in 2021.
Over on Twitch, Baldur’s Gate 3 continues to rake in high stream numbers. Its popularity has been boosted by streamers such as Cohhcarnage, whose broadcasts have been receiving tens of thousands of views.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has a chance to boost its popularity yet again on September 6 when the PS5 version is released. The studio is also targeting September 6 for its Mac release, though an official release date has yet to be confirmed. Xbox players haven’t been left out in the cold, and they’ll be able to join in on the fun “when it’s ready” for the Series X/S.
