Four months after the official release of Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios has released another handful of fun stats that shed some light on players' habits - including who they're picking as their romance option.
But perhaps most notably, Larian revealed that 1.3 million players have finished the game so far, which is a pretty sizable feat considering how vast Baldur's Gate 3 is (our sister site HowLongToBeat estimates that it takes about 103 hours to complete the main objectives and side quests). Funny enough, that's around the same amount of players who've been turned into a sentient wheel of cheese at one certain point in Act 3.
⚔️ Since our launch in August, over 1.3 million players have completed Baldur's Gate 3.
— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) December 5, 2023
🧀 A number almost equaled by those of you transformed into a wheel of cheese.
📈 All this, and more in our latest thread of amazing stats! pic.twitter.com/38hSZw1wPk
But let's talk romance: while Baldur's Gate 3 has a number of intriguing romance paths, Shadowheart's is easily the most popular, with 51.3% players completing her romance arc (which you can find a walkthrough of here). It turns out she really is God's favorite princess and the most interesting girl in the world. She's followed by everyone's favorite tiefling Barbarian Karlach and our rough-around-the-edges githyanki Lae'zel - or "Bae'zel," as many romancers call her.
Elsewhere in the romance-related department, Larian revealed an interesting detail about that Druid bear sex scene. (Potential spoilers for this scene to follow, in case you've somehow missed it online thus far).
At a certain point in the game, players may be romantically propositioned by the Druid Halsin who, uh, loses control of his physical form and Wild Shapes into a bear as things are getting hot and heavy. The player has the option to either ask Halsin to stay in human form, or let him get his furry paws all over them; 66% of players asked for the former.
💀 Number of you who started an Honour Mode playthrough? 158'000
— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) December 5, 2023
🩻 Of those players, 464 parties have made it to the end already. 34'000 of you...have already met your match. Better luck next time. pic.twitter.com/sLZ53yxHS4
The ability to create a player character also proved wildly popular, with 94% of players making a custom character - and those players were taking their time in making sure they had just the right faces and hairstyles. Larian reports that players have spent a combined 8196 years in the character creator.
Of those who did decide to play as an Origin character, Gale is the most popular, with 466k players embarking on the path of the combustible Wizard. He's followed by Astarion, with 424k players sinking their fangs into that origin run.
On top of all of that, Larian also released some initial stats on its new, incredibly punishing Honour Mode, which was introduced in last week's Patch 5. 158k brave players embarked on the new game mode, with 34,000 of them already dying. Surprisingly, 464 people have actually completed the game in Honour Mode already, which is pretty wild considering how briefly it's been released and its difficulty level.
And we'll end it with, obviously, the most important stat: best boy Scratch has been pet 48.5 million times. Good boy, Scratch.
It's only the latest bit of Baldur's Gate 3 news as we head into this week's The Game Awards, where it's nominated for eight big awards including Game of the Year. Meanwhile, fans have been enjoying discovering all the many things the massive Patch 5 has introduced, including one Easter eggs specifically for those many Shadowheart romancers.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
