The folks at Larian Studios have reason to celebrate as Baldur’s Gate 3 has managed to sell over 5.3 units in a short span of time. The notable achievement was revealed in an unusual roundabout by way of the Belgian Embassy which congratulated Larian Studios via the Chinese social media platform Weibo. In its post, the Embassy provided a brief history of Larian Studios, which was founded in Ghent in 1996, along with some background on how Baldur’s Gate and its roots in tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons.
From Weibo (machine translated):
“Belgian game developer rolls the dice… BIG SUCCESS!
If you pay attention to video games, you should have heard of “one of the best fantasy role-playing games of this decade” – “Baldur’s Gate 3” that has been buzzing online in recent weeks.
But many people may not know that Larian Studio, which develops the game, is from Belgium. Founded in Ghent in 1996, the company was originally known for its role-playing game series Divinity, the last two of which Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2 received positive reviews from critics and players alike.
Larian Studios surprised fans by announcing the development of the third installment in the Baldur’s Gate series. However, the production process also faced a lot of challenges: this game series was originally developed by the Canadian RPG giant BioWare. It has been more than 20 years since the last generation of the main series game “Baldur’s Gate 2” was launched, but it is still the most successful game in history. One of the popular game series.
Let’s briefly introduce this game. Baldur’s Gate is a video game based on the famous tabletop fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons. In the game, players must first create their own characters, giving them abilities, flaws, and background stories. It’s up to the players to work together to meet the dangers the game master has in store for them.
Baldur’s Gate running on a computer is like the board game Dungeons and Dragons, where the player chooses what to do next, but the success of the action is determined by rolling a 20-sided die (aka “D20”). Luck is an important factor that affects the progress of the game. For example, a character tries to shoot an arrow at a monster. If the player is unlucky and rolls a 1, the arrow will bounce and hit his foot. If you’re lucky and roll a 20, the arrow will hit the bull’s eye. Additionally, the outcome of the dice roll is affected by the character’s abilities and experience.
So, can we say that Baldur’s Gate 3 rolled a “natural 20”? Let’s take a look at the numbers as of August 16th when this article was written:
- The game has sold 5.2 million copies on the PC game platform Steam, with more than 870,000 concurrent online users and a 94.3% positive rating.
- On Metacritic, a site that collects reviews, Baldur’s Gate 3 is already the eighth highest-rated game of all time, with an average rating of 97%, and the highest-rated game since 2010.
Clearly, the new generation of games has not disappointed fans of the series and is comparable to its predecessors. Such success is not all due to luck, and Larian Studios deserves credit for putting in a lot of effort into developing the new game. We hope that the success of Larian Studios will draw more attention to the Belgian company’s efforts in game development and multimedia.”
Total sales numbers could become much higher
Just as Baldur’s Gate 3 has managed to be a hit on Steam, where it currently sits at #9 for all-time peak players, only slightly behind this year’s other blockbuster Hogwarts Legacy, total sales numbers could get much higher. The game which launched on August 3 for PC on Steam, GOG, and GeForce Now, will release for PlayStation 5 on September 6.
Discussion (7 replies)
Join Discussion →I know a lot of people playing this game, and they're all loving it. Some of them have played past Larian games and were already fans. I plan to get around to their games one day, just haven't felt like it yet. Honestly kinda scared to jump in, as big, deep, and long as those games are. Props to Larian on another success.
Just something to observe. This game is VERY flexible. If you don't want to do the titular CRPG thing of exploring and looking and clicking on EVERYTHING you don't have to... you'll not have specific companions and such when you do that and the game just feels... massive. I've restarted the game 4 times now and never felt like it was the same ole same ole.
1 observation I will make. If you don't have speak with animals going... or the ability to have it going. You are MISSING A LOT OF voice acted content. I would even say a SHOCKING amount. This game go's DEEP and it does not disappoint.
Who the FUCK expected COW's to tell you about treasure because they were complaining? Or a conversation with a random creature to be fully and very well voice acted. Hell even the squirrels you see in the game will have something to say.
And ALL of it (thus far for me) is voice acted. WHO THE FREAK DOES THAT?! I dare say they could have charged 100 bucks for this game and it would feel like it was worth it. This is the the first time in a LONG time I've felt like the game delivered far more than the dollar value it paid for it. And THAT is what other developers should be afraid of.
I've never gotten around to playing any of this series but I might check this out around winter time after I finish RE4.
My sixth sense is telling me this is a game I'd absolutely hate. Not going to touch it until it drops in price to an amount I'm comfortable throwing out.
If you're not into the tactical combat and resource management aspect... yea avoid it watch someone else play it online or something.
The game came out on GOG, which means it has no DRM, which means it will be easy as f*ck to get a "community demo". Then you can try it out for yourself at no cost, and see if your 6th sense was right. I will probably end up trying the game using a friend's copy through Steam library sharing/family sharing/whatever the f*ck it's called, since I have access to that. I won't be messing around with it any time soon though. Plenty of games on my plate already.
Tactical combat can be extremely fun, or a giant pita depending on how it is implemented. I fear this game is the latter.
I was banned years ago from "community demo" sites ironically for not downloading anything :D