Back in June, we said you should be excited for the full version of Baldur’s Gate 3 to drop and guess what? We are certainly not gloating but we were right. It is finally available to play and has taken the gaming community by storm.
For a game that has been in early access since October 2020, Larian Studios – the game’s developer – were eager to finally release it to the masses. The initial launch date – 31 August 2023 – was abandoned for 3 August 2023 seemingly to avoid competing with the highly-anticipated Starfield dropping in early September.
That decision, together with the simple fact that people are loving the game, have made it an unsuspecting success. Yes, nobody thought Baldur’s Gate 3 would flop, but for it to challenge The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Game of the Year? Paul Tassi, a writer for Forbes, called the new release a “sleeping giant”.
On Metacritic, the game has obtained a 97 metascore (with 26 critic reviews) and a 9.1 user score (with 5455 ratings).
The role-playing video game based on Dungeons and Dragons has also beaten big names like PUBG: Battlegrounds and Apex Legends to become the top selling game on Steam. With its 650, 443 current players, it only loses out to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the most played game on the platform.
This is no mean feat for Larian Studios, especially since they are an independent developer. Without the same funds and resources their competitors have access to, this success is greatly impressive.
Will Baldur’s Gate 3 hold on to this hype and be a contender for Game of the Year 2023 come the end of the year?
