On its launch weekend, Baldur’s Gate 3 recorded at least 10 million hours of game time and other interesting statistics from players. (Images: Larian Studios and Wizards of the Coast)

Baldur's Gate 3 has achieved numerous benchmarks on its launch weekend, not the least of which is clocking 10 million hours from players across the globe.

Within the period of its launch weekend, Baldur's Gate 3 already broke into the highest concurrent player count of Steam games for 2023. And despite the multiple bugs reported by players and some work to tweak the optimized settings, the Larian Studios masterpiece based on Dungeons & Dragons and set in the Forgotten Realms continued to enjoy unparalleled success. But it goes far deeper than that, apparently, as the game has tracked multiple achievements players have reached since it was fully released with some interesting results.

Larian Studios posted a Community Update, sharing what the numbers looked during the launch weekend of Baldur's Gate 3.

Last weekend, you played 1225 years of Baldur’s Gate 3. As we head into the second weekend of launch, we’ve compiled some tasty stats for you to sink your teeth into.

Read more in Community Update #23 - Here’s To You: https://t.co/G2nJGeI2iE pic.twitter.com/wFe1AhqyKZ

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) August 11, 2023

The weekend numbers right after BG3 launched on August 3rd reveal that players had 10 million hours of game time in the Forgotten Realms. To put that in perspective, that is a combined total time equal to 1,225 years.

Larian Studios also shared that at least 368 players finished the game within that launch weekend window. Of course, that would simply count for players who barreled through Baldur's Gate from beginning to end, and not how many have achieved the potential 17,000 various alternate endings.

Other interesting factoids Larian Studios shared about player behavior while playing Baldur's Gate include:

• Half-Elf is the most popular D&D race chosen for customized character creation, with Human being a close second, and pure Elf bringing up the third. All three races hover above 250 thousand players, with the fourth most popular race (Dragonborn) chosen by just above 200 thousand players.
• The least popular D&D race is Githyanki, with Halfling and Gnome following. Seems the vast majority of players have an issue regarding the height challenged D&D species.
• Paladin is the overwhelmingly favored D&D character class among BG3 players, with over 200,000 choosing the archetypal "divine righteous hero" path. Sorcerer is the second most popular character class choice at around 180 thousand, and Warlock at third place.
• Clerics are the least popular of the D&D classes in Baldur's Gate 3. It's interesting that both the top and bottom class choices are agents of the gods, but Paladins get to Smite Evil while Clerics are more about buffs and heals. Even in Baldur's Gate 3, everyone wants to go the DPS route and few want to play support.



• The most popular Origins character choice is, surprisingly, Gale, with over 27 thousand players selecting the ambitious Human Wizard. Meanwhile, both Karlach and Astarion have just above 22 thousand players who chose them as their Origins character.
• The least favorite Origin character in BG3? Lae'zel. Considering Githyanki is also the least chosen D&D race for custom characters, this does not come as a surprise.

Larian Studios also took the opportunity to express their appreciation for the massive response and success of Baldur's Gate 3 despite the challenges presented by the various bugs and glitches, which the developers affirm their commitment to fix as they come:

We'd like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the profound joy you've given us throughout this launch. The love and support you've shown us has lifted us up and energised us to tackle the bugs that pop up as you do the unexpected. We've created a game where you can do almost anything with the tools and systems we give you, and with that come a lot of unexpected surprises, but as you report them, we continue to work away on fixing them with our spirits high.

The studio also provided a promising update to the approaching Playstation 5 release:

Your journeys were so full that we recently had to increase the size of savegames to allow for each individual's personal tapestry. It was a surprise as humbling as it was serious, and serves as the perfect example of the type of unpredictable situation we work quickly to remedy. And yes, all of the hotfixes and changes that come with forthcoming patches will be reflected in the PlayStation 5 version of the game and beyond.

More information about the statistics Larian Studios gathered from Baldur's Gate 3 player actions can be found here.

What do you think about Baldur's Gate 3's statistics and what does it bode for the future of CRPGs? Do you believe BG3 should be the industry standard from here on or is it an "anomaly" that comes once in a while, as some game developers and publishers say?

Baldur's Gate is available for Windows PC and can be played on the Steam Deck, with the Sony Playstation 5 port targeted for release on September 6, 2023. The macOS and Xbox Series X/S version of BG3 are currently in development with their respective release dates TBD.