Baldur’s Gate 3 Launch Sees Big Numbers on Steam and Twitch, and They’re Climbing Rapidly

Baldur’s Gate 3 is off to a big start on Twitch and Steam. The highly-anticipated new RPG by Larian Studios excited early access earlier today, whereupon it quickly rocketed to a strong 308,000 concurrents on Steam and has since risen to 340,000. Not too bad for a hardcore RPG that had been broadly overlooked by the mainstream gaming population during its early access period.

It’s a similar story on Twitch, where it currently sits at around 480,000 viewers thanks to the support of prominent streamers such as CohhCarnage and sodapoppin.

Steam rocking 59.3 Tbps right now in NA. Folks thirsty for Baldur’s Gate. pic.twitter.com/Dg4M7DfkUe

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) August 3, 2023

A strong start for Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate 3’s launch numbers are partly owed to the interest spurred by the news that it will be possible to romance a bear (or should we say, a Druid in bear form). Interest in Baldur’s Gate 3’s romantic options propelled it up Steam’s best-sellers list, suddenly making it one of the hottest releases of the summer. It was aided by Larian’s decision to move up its release on PC, giving it as a clear release window.

There’s every reason to believe that this is only the start for Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s currently the middle of the work day in the U.S. and the weekend is still around the corner. Steam also buckled a bit under the demand for Baldur’s Gate 3, with demand exacerbated by the inability to pre-load the game.

One way or another though, fans are playing Baldur’s Gate 3, and positive impressions are starting to trickle in.

My @baldursgate3 Review-in-Progress is live! I’m about 28 hours in so far (22 as of the writing of that copy), and I can already say this is the one successor to the Infinity Engine games that I think has gotten it right since like 2009.https://t.co/VCx3Yg6zi5

— Len (@TilFolkvang) August 3, 2023

“On the whole, I really am loving Baldur’s Gate 3 so far,” we wrote in our Baldur’s Gate III review-in-progress. “It definitely has some blemishes, from minor bugs to a combat system that I don’t exactly adore at lower levels. But I’ve been waiting 14 years for another alignment of the planets like Dragon Age: Origins, when an old-school CRPG got a big enough budget to look like a high quality animated movie – but the design hadn’t been completely steered in the wrong direction in a misguided attempt to reach a different market like the later two Dragon Ages. This is the closest anyone has ever come to recapturing that magic.”

We’ll update this story with more launch data as it comes in. In the meantime, if you managed to Baldur’s Gate 3 installed, consider checking out our guides to Baldur’s Gate 3’s races and subraces, Baldur’s Gate 3’s classes and subclasses, and how to build a character.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.