Baldur’s Gate 3 is 2023’s second biggest Steam launch so far

Newly released RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 has enjoyed the second biggest Steam launch of 2023 so far.

The game, which has been in early access for years, was officially released on Thursday on Steam, where it saw a peak concurrent player count of 427,000 according to independent Steam tracker SteamDB. 

While impressive, it’s still a long way off 2023’s biggest Steam release to date, Hogwarts Legacy, which saw a peak concurrent player count of 879,308 during its launch period.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was developed by Larian, who previously helmed Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Playable single-player or multiplayer, the RPG promises to offer “a rich narrative with unparalleled player freedom, high-stakes decisions, unique companion characters and memorable combat” as players battle to save Baldur’s Gate the Forgotten Realms from a malevolent presence.

Developed in collaboration with the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards of the Coast, Baldur’s Gate 3 is “based off current D&D mechanics and spells.”

The game will be released on PS5 next month, but Larian has suggested that the Xbox version may not launch until 2024. 

Writing on Twitter,  Larian’s director of publishing Michael Douse seemed to imply that the issues relating to launching the game on Microsoft‘s platform may not be resolved until next year.

“We have quite a few engineers working very hard to do what no other RPG of this scale has achieved – seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op on Series S,” Douse wrote. “We hope to have an update by the end of the year.”