Baldur's Gate 3 has passed Skyrim and Fallout 4 on Steam's all-time biggest RPG launches

BG3
(Image credit: Larian)

Baldur's Gate 3 has had an astoundingly successful launch by pretty much every reasonable metric and now, 24 hours after release, Larian's latest RPG has surpassed the launches of even Bethesda titans like Skyrim and Fallout 4 on Steam.

As of this writing, Baldur's Gate 3 has reached 532,876 concurrent players on Steam, as SteamDB shows. That's the 11th-biggest concurrent player count in the platform's history, just behind the free-to-play Apex Legends. It's the third-biggest single-player RPG launch in Steam history, behind Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring, and the second-biggest launch of any genre in 2023, behind the open-world action game Hogwarts Legacy.

Maybe most notably, Baldur's Gate 3 has surpassed the concurrent player records of both Fallout 4 (472,962) and Skyrim (287,411), which were set with each game's respective launch. Now, that's not a perfect comparison, since Steam itself has gotten dramatically more popular in the years since the releases of those games. This is as much about the growth of Steam as it is about the success of Baldur's Gate 3.

But there's a special relationship in this moment between Larian and Bethesda. After all, Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield are unquestionably the two biggest RPGs of the year, and console warriors have been determined to pit the two games against each other, since they'll be launching for competing consoles on the same day. But that's really all fandom talk, as the two studios have nothing but kind words for each other on social media

In any case, all this success has surprised even Larian. CEO Swen Vincke tweets that he "probably should stay away from the IT team for a while - told them they should expect like 100k or so at max." 

Check out our Baldur's Gate 3 review in progress for an early verdict, or dig into our Baldur's Gate 3 launch coverage for much, much more.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

Read more
Skyrim
Skyrim Special Edition is about to beat its concurrent player record 9 years after launch thanks to a huge sale
Baldur's Gate 3 screenshot showing Astarion, a pale male elf with short curly white hair and red eyes, looking over his shoulder with a smirk on his face
As the "incredible journey" to Baldur's Gate 3 wraps up, Larian Studios has its "full attention" on its next RPG: "The story ain't over yet"
Kingdom Come: Deliverance protagonist Henry caught by guards
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 breaks into Steam's top 50 most-played with a peak concurrent player count more than twice what the original had
Baldur's gate 3 screenshot of a playermade tav and Gale in the background
Baldur's Gate 3 has changed so much in 2024 that I wish the RPG could be my GOTY again this year
The key art for Baldur's Gate 3 showing dragons and the Nautilus, with Karlach standing in the foreground, weapon in hand
The Making of Baldur's Gate 3: "We really wanted to make it so that even if you don't know D&D or Baldur's Gate, you would still have exciting choices as a player"
Monster Hunter Wilds
Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and now Dota 2 fall to Monster Hunter Wilds as it crosses 1.3 million peak Steam players despite 49% positive reviews
Latest in RPG
Atomfall screenshot
Fallout: New Vegas is a big inspiration for Atomfall, which is why you’ll be able to kill every NPC in post-apocalyptic Cumbria
Assassin's Creed Shadows cinematic screenshot
Assassin's Creed Shadows' transmog looks set to combine the best of Odyssey and Vahalla to make changing my drip easier than ever
Stardew Valley Baldur's Gate 3 mod Baldur's Village
Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke gives his official approval to the Stardew Valley mod that brings the D&D RPG to Pelican Town
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
The Blood of Dawnwalker: A screenshot of the vampire Brencis holding up a crown during the trailer for the upcoming game.
The Witcher 3 devs created a Jekyll & Hyde-style character for their new vampire RPG "because nobody yet has done that"
Latest in News
Silent Hill f
After 2 years of silence, the next mainline Silent Hill game is getting a dedicated stream this week with "the latest news"
Original Xbox console
Former Microsoft exec says the first Xbox was killed early in favor of 360 because it was "losing money left right and center," but luckily "we could afford to hemorrhage cash"
A Monster Hunter Wilds character holding binoculars.
Despite Monster Hunter Wilds suffering monstrous performance problems on PC, it still outsold the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions in the US
Jordan A. Mun looks at herself in a mirror in just a vest in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet screenshot
The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann says Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will also be about "being lonely," as if his zombie apocalypse wasn’t isolating enough: "I really want you to be lost"
A screenshot of Jordan drinking a soda during the reveal trailer for Intergalactic: The Hertic Prophet.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is "a game about faith and religion," which Neil Druckmann jokes will surely get less hate than The Last of Us 2
Pedro Pascal as Joel in The Last of Us
The Last of Us is "better" than 28 Days Later, says movie writer Alex Garland: "This is so much more sophisticated and moving"