Baldur's Gate 3 reaches half a million concurrent players on Steam

What you need to know

• After years in early access, Baldur's Gate 3 launched in full for Windows PC on August 3, 2023.

• The game has been critically acclaimed and early commercial results also seem positive.

• Leading into the weekend, Baldur's Gate 3 has over 500,000 concurrent players on Steam, a rare feat made more impressive by the game's genre.

• Baldur's Gate 3 is coming to PS5 on Sep. 6, 2023, while developer Larian Studios hopes to eventually have an Xbox Series X|S version as well.

Larian Studios' latest massive role-playing game just arrived recently in full, and it's already putting up some impressive numbers.

Baldur's Gate 3 exited early access and launched in full on August 3, 2023. Just a day later, the game has reached 500,000 concurrent players on Steam. For half a million players to be trying a hardcore RPG at the same time is no mean feat.

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- Baldur's Gate 3: Who is the Guardian?
- Baldur's Gate 3: Can your PC run it?
- When will Baldur's Gate 3 come to Xbox?

Now it's important to keep in mind that many of these players likely already purchased the game, as Baldur's Gate 3 sold 2.5 million copies in early access, something that aided the developers at Larian Studios in growing their team to 450 developers at six locations and expanding the game's scope well beyond many of its turn-based peers.

Still, it seems off to a great start. Only one other new game has beaten this number of concurrent players in 2023, with Avalanche Software and Warner Bros' Hogwarts Legacy reaching well over 800,000 concurrent players on Steam back in February.

Outside of the Windows PC launch, Larian Studios is bringing Baldur's Gate 3 to PlayStation 5 on Sep. 6, 2023. The team also hopes to bring an Xbox version to bear, but there's no date for when that will happen yet.

Analysis: The gamers yearn for choice

There's been some commentary recently around people needing to simplify ideas so that certain audiences, like Americans, can understand it. The idea that plots should be simple, people want to always turn their brains off, and complexity eschewing success.

While I'm not going to deny there's a media literacy crisis brewing, I still fundamentally believe that if you respect your audience, your audience will respect you, and I think that plays a part in the early success of Baldur's Gate 3.

There are many other factors at work here, make no mistake, and the team had to spend well over six years to get to this point. Still, it's great to see that effort seemingly being rewarded.

Now, I need to clear up more space on my computer so I can download it and make my Dragonborn Bard already. Or maybe a Tiefling sorceress...