With the long-prophesied, potentially apocalyptic coming of Larian Studio's Baldur's Gate 3 (to PC), we mere mortals can only gaze in wonderment as Steam, Valve's monolithic (near-monopolistic) platform, buckles to contain the girthy game. The millions of deviant players who couldn't wait to dive in are thrashing it for all its worth, but at least so far, it seems the seals are holding. Oh, and we got a new trailer!
Founder and CEO of Larian Studios, Knight in Shining Armor, and no doubt extremely minted Baldur's Gate 3 director, Swen Vincke, gallantly took to X to humblebrag:
Baldur's Gate 3 was always going to be a monumental RPG, meticulously crafted and, in some respects, decades in the making. Positioned, by some, as a competitor to the industry-stopping Starfield (despite being lightyears apart in terms of gameplay), Microsoft's own industry-shaking WRPG, but Larian is playing a different game entirely.
Defiantly independent, the Belgium-based studio has no interest in being acquired and was wise enough to just get out of Starfield's way entirely, bringing the PC launch forward a month (to today) and pushing the PS5 version to 6th September. And while Larian has no interest in playing the exclusivity game, Xbox players may be disappointed to find that a seemingly unprecedented "huge technical hurdle" might have pushed that iteration into 2024.
According to the tracking site Steam Charts, we are willing to suggest the studio made some serious coin overnight (and has been dominating all month), with the rest of the world yet to wake up. At the time of this writing, Steam Charts looked like this:
