Baldur's Gate 3 smashes Steam record for biggest CRPG and turn-based game ever

Baldur's Gate 3 has continued setting new records on Steam in the wake of its massively successful launch, with its latest peak concurrent player count beating that of every other CRPG and turn-based game by a large margin.

Larian Studios' long-awaited RPG finally launched out of Early Access last week and immediately shot up the Steam charts, becoming the platforms second-biggest launch of 2023 behind Hogwarts Legacy. It then surpassed both Skyrim and Fallout 4 on Steam's list of the biggest RPG launches ever, and its highest recorded concurrent player count - that is, the most people playing at the same time - has now reached 814,666, nearly twice its launch day peak.

As is being discussed on Reddit, that places Baldur's Gate 3's highest concurrent player peak well above that of the next highest turn-based game, Dota Underlords, at 202,334 peak concurrent, and that's with the reach of it being more of an auto-battler. In the CRPG category, Larian's Divinity Original Sin 2 has the next-highest peak concurrent player count at 93,701 - a respectable figure that's still hundreds of thousands lower than Baldur's Gate 3's. 

Putting aside the huge caveat that Steam itself has become exponentially bigger in recent years and thus will naturally bring in more players to newer games, it's still safe to call Baldur's Gate 3 a roaring success on PC, and it's shaping up to be a big hit on PS5 when it launches there on September 6. 

If you're a new fan checking out the game without a ton of knowledge of the series, here's everything you need to know about D&D before playing Baldur's Gate 3.