Larian publishes new Baldur's Gate 3 player statistics at three years

Larian Studios has marked the third anniversary of Baldur's Gate 3 by publishing a batch of aggregate player statistics, continuing what Polygon and PC Gamer both describe as an annual tradition for the developer. The figures were posted to the studio's social accounts and cover everything from mod activity to how often individual characters are killed.

The largest number in the set concerns mods. Larian said players have downloaded mods 500 million times, up from the 265 million figure reported at the game's second anniversary, and that roughly 13,000 mods have been uploaded.

The most-killed characters

Larian also ranked which story NPCs have died most often across all playthroughs. The tiefling leader Zevlor leads by a wide margin at 12.31 million deaths, followed by the wizard Rolan at 8.62 million, Isobel at 7.2 million, Volo at 4.62 million and the bard Alfira at 2.62 million.

The studio broke out separate figures for Dark Urge playthroughs, where Alfira died in 48 percent of runs. Isobel was killed in 62 percent of Dark Urge runs, Zevlor in 48 percent, Wulbren in 32 percent and the kobold trader Popper in 30 percent. One line from the round-up drew particular attention from both outlets.

Alfira is encountered in the grove area during the game's first act. A Dark Urge playthrough scripts her death in a cutscene, so the comparison indicates that players choosing to kill her outnumber those the narrative forces into it.

Edge cases and outliers

The remaining statistics cover unusual player behaviour. More than 30,000 players took on the Netherbrain drunk, and fewer than one percent of players have collected all 180,000 gold in a single playthrough. Larian counted 9,008 players running the game at a 9:16 portrait aspect ratio and 114 at a square 1:1 ratio. A handful of players saved manually more than 560 times in one playthrough. Two obscure weapons also got a mention: a rock called the Nut-Buster has been used twice in combat in the Creche, and the Poo-Scraper four times across the third act.

Polygon reports that more than 20 million people have bought and played Baldur's Gate 3 since its 2023 release.