Baldur’s Gate 3 has once again proven that there are still plenty of us who want rich and in-depth RPG games. With neverending multiplayer experiences often dominating the charts, it can be difficult for single-player games to make a dent, but Baldur’s Gate 3 has caved a hole in the PC game landscape and isn’t slowing down. If our Baldur’s Gate 3 review didn’t make the quality of Larian’s DnD adventure clear enough, then its incredibly impressive Steam retention should cement it.
With so many Baldur’s Gate 3 classes and moral choices to choose from, the length of your stay in the Forgotten Realms can vary wildly, but it’s still going to be quite a while no matter what. So while it may have only been a month since launch, BG3 has some of the best retention of the biggest single-player games in Steam history.
There’s usually a steep drop-off for single-player games on platforms like Steam, as players come to the end of their adventure and move on to other things. With plenty of Baldur’s Gate 3 mods and an average playtime of almost 100 hours though, BG3 is keeping players entertained.
In fact, according to SteamDB (via a post on the BG3 subreddit), Baldur’s Gate 3 actually has some of the best player retention stats of a single-player game in recent years. All of the other games on this list are long and also had incredibly high concurrent player peaks at launch, but something about Baldur’s Gate 3 has kept more people around for a little bit longer.
With plenty of Baldur’s Gate 3 quests to rival many other RPGs, Larian’s effort is standing strong. When compared to the first month on Steam of Fallout 4, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, and Elden Ring, BG3 is right up towards the top with a steady player count of over 600,000.
While Cyberpunk 2077 had the most sizeable Steam launch at over one million players, it quickly dropped to less than 200,000 after one month, alongside Fallout 4 and Hogwarts Legacy. That’s not bad, to be clear (far from it), but compared to Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s significantly lower.
FromSoftware and Larian have remained largely neck and neck in terms of Steam player count so far, so it’ll be interesting to see if Baldur’s Gate 3 can keep the momentum up, especially considering the Starfield release date is right around the corner.
Single-player games always drop off dramatically shortly after launch, as is the nature of a game you play alone and can definitively finish, so seeing all of these games curve downwards is by no means a bad thing – it’s expected, in fact. What really stands out here is how Baldur’s Gate 3 has remained largely steady so far, with this hopefully carrying on into September and beyond Starfield.
The world of DnD is as wide as it is deep, so we can help you at the first hurdle in Larian’s adventure with our comprehensive Baldur’s Gate 3 companions breakdown, alongside the best Baldur’s Gate 3 settings to get the most out of your rig’s performance while playing.
