Baldur’s Gate 3 is breaking Steam records with the 500,000+ concurrent players during launch day. But it also turned out BG3 is a very broken game, with multiple bugs and technical issues requiring a hotfix just a day after launch.
Based on Wizards of the Coast’s globally popular Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition rules, Baldur’s Gate 3 has become an undeniable success. Developed and published by Larian Studios (Divinity: Original Sin II), Baldur’s Gate 3 offers a massively immersive roleplaying experience, with literally thousands of possible ending variations, including romance options with NPC companions.
While no one has finished the game (as of yet), Baldur’s Gate 3 already reached a milestone with concurrent Steam players.
According to SteamDB, Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 had reached 403,373 concurent players, which was shared on Twitter.
Baldur's Gate 3 is out, and already has 400,000 concurrent players pic.twitter.com/ehigLARHEC
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) August 3, 2023
However, that was only a taste of what’s to come, as BG3 on Steam later reached an all-time peak of 593,788. While it comes up short to the nearly 900,000 players recorded for Hogwarts Legacy launch numbers, Baldur’s Gate 3’s record still puts it as the second highest in 2023.
But with such a large number of concurrent users online playing solo or multiplayer, some technical hiccups happen. Players complained about issues with crashing, dice rolling errors, graphical glitches, broken cinematics, and saving their progress.
Larian Studios responded to the reports, finding over 150 bugs and worked on a hotfix. Per the update posted on Steam:
Thank you so much for all the love and support you’ve shown Baldur’s Gate 3 – it’s been surreal to finally launch this game after six years in development, and an incredible honour to watch so many of you play and discover what the team has built. We hope you’ll enjoy BG3 for many months – even years – to come.
All that said, Hotfix #1 is coming in fresh: today’s update takes care of several crashes, bugs and much more.
We’ve been reading your reports on issues with saving your game, and have found a culprit – our cross-saves. Bearing in mind this will only be a useful feature come September 6 when the PlayStation 5 version launches (and beyond), we’ve decided to disable it for now to allow us to solve the issue in the interim. You shouldn’t notice anything in-game and Steam Cloud saves are unaffected by this change.
You can find the list of bugs and technical problems the Baldur’s Gate 3 hotfix resolves at this link.
The first two Baldur’s Gate games were developed by BioWare became critical hits that influenced later CRPGs (computer roleplaying games). Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn were built on a modified ruleset based on the then-current second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Set in the popular D&D Forgotten Realms fantasy campaign setting, the main plot centered on the Bhaalspawn. With the balance of good and evil at stake, the ultimate outcome would be determined by the player’s actions and decisions. The innovative and wide variety of character creation options, NPC interactions, and multiple paths of resolution would inspire later RPGs, including Larian Studios’ own Divinity series.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is, in a way, coming full circle with Larian Studios taking over the reins of the beloved roleplaying game series. Early access to the game started in 2020 and it provided players who signed up for it a glimpse of what was to come. But even these players weren’t prepared for the huge amount of content Baldur’s Gate 3 would turn out to be. With its nearly 150 GB required space for installation, some Steam users had to resort to some tinkering to speed up the download on BG3’s launch day.
Can Baldur’s Gate 3 reach higher numbers now that a hotfix has addressed the launch day technical issues? Or perhaps the GOG release is an ideal alternative, since GOG’s Baldur’s Gate 3 version can be played without an always-online launcher?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available for play on Windows PC. The game is targeted for a Sony Playstation 5 release on September 6, with a TBD release for the in-development macOS and Xbox platforms.
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