Baldur’s Gate 3 achieves something on Steam, which new MMORPGs only dream of

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The role -playing game Baldur’s Gate 3 has reached a rare milestone on Steam, of which each new MMORPG can only dream, but only very few achieve: the number of players has been at a high level for a year, with only low fluctuations. That was actually not intended at all. The last new MMORPGs, New World and Lost Ark, can only dream of such a constant.

What has Baldur’s Gate 3 achieved on Steam? Baldur’s Gate 3 did the feat of establishing a constant player base on Steam over a period of one year, from February 2024 to 2025, and at a very high level:

  • In February 2024, a good six months after the release, Baldur’s Gate 3 was on a daily average players at 104,000 at the same time. Here the very big hype began to slow down and the game shrank to a nuclear player.
  • A year later, in February 2025, the game is still 63,300 average players.
  • Baldur’s Gate 3 never fell under 58,800 players throughout the calendar year from February 2024 to February 2025. Player growth and players were minimal in many months, in the area of ​​around 5 %.

    • There are 3 secret rooms in Baldur’s Gate that very few of you will ever see

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    Baldur’s Gate 3 reaches a remarkable number of players on Steam and holds it

    Why is that so special? Like every game, Baldur’s Gate 3 had a “hype phase” for the release, with such a high number of players that it could be held impossible over a longer period of time. With Baldur’s Gate 3, that was 450,000 players.

    However, art is to keep as high as possible, after this initial hype that you can find and on which you can stay.

    At Baldur’s Gate 3, this level is at an extremely high level with around 67,000 to 63,000. The fluctuations are relatively low and are only a few percentage points in most months.

    With new MMORPGs, the number of players goes up and down like a jojo

    How about MMORPGs? In recent years there have been two relevant new MMORPGs on Steam, both of them were released by Amazon.

    With the Free2Play MMORPG Lost Ark, the initial Steam release with 700,000 average players was extremely high. But the game never managed to establish such a level. The number of players fluctuated strongly, it was an up and down. The number of players changed by 40 % or 60 % in the last calendar year from month to month.

    In New World, 65 % of the players disappeared from the previous month in June 2024.

    At New World we see a similar phenomenon: a huge influx at the beginning, followed by a free fall in the number of players. Here, too, we see strong fluctuations during the last calendar year: In October 2024, the number of players even gave rise to 374 % after they have been fell by 34 % to 10 % for 11 months.

    The number of players from Baldur’s Gate 3, New World and Lost Ark developed on Steam from February 2024 to February 2025:

    Baldur’s Gate 3 creates a world in which the players entertain themselves

    Why is that? Baldur’s Gate 3 has succeeded in creating such fascinating characters and such an exciting game world that players want to spend time in this created game universe.

    Therefore, a game forms a game that keeps itself happy:

  • There are discussions about individual figures or the game world: figures such as Astarion or Shadowherz are constant. Even the voice actors have become small stars of the community
  • The game is examined in every corner and precisely illuminated
  • Players can participate in the game via mods

    • This is the ideal idea of ​​everyone who develops a service game or a MMORPG: from a critical mass, the game becomes a self-runner and the community wears it to large parts, while the developers only re-steer and extensions from the outside and patches must give.

    With the MMORPGs, on the other hand, it is the case that they live very strongly from ever new content, which is new to the game and keeps lifting it up. If this new content is missing, interest in the game goes down significantly. To put it simplified:

  • With Baldur’s Gate 3, the players play a good deal with each other and with themselves
  • At New World and Lost Ark, constant input from outside is needed so that the players are entertained

    • Examples of Games who lived strongly from the community and the characters were overwatch in the past or gensin. Both games were significantly more successful in their wedding than they should have been from the pure game material.

    The phenomenon of the long-term favorite games on Steam

    There are also other games that succeed? There are a number of such long-running games that are played constantly throughout the year:

  • The strategy games of Paradox like Crusader Kings 3 or Hearts of Iron have such a constant player base on Steam, but they also keep new DLCs. Hearts of Iron has managed to set up a new player record on Steam after 8 years.
  • The Steam-owned long-running Dota 2 and CS: GO are constant at the top of the charts, with little deviations. These are exceptional appearances.
  • Certain procedurally generated endless games such as Rimworld are such long-running favorites.

    • But in general, a consistently high player base over the period of one year is a rare and valuable phenomenon. This is an exceptional performance, especially with a classic single player title like Baldur’s Gate 3, which is actually intended as a linear campaign.

    That is behind it: The enormous success of Baldur’s Gate 3 certainly has an impact on new role -playing games that appear. Because they appear in a world in which Baldur’s Gate 3 not only set new standards for the quality and longevity of role -playing games, but they also appear in a world in which a large part of the role players are still active Baldur’s Gate 3.

    For the gaming industry, it is a big problem that your new games are increasingly competing with already established games that just don’t go away. For years it was a problem that had new MMORPGs in particular. In the meantime, however, it also affects new games of other genres: man behind Anthem explains why new MMOs fail so terribly: compares WoW with Starbucks

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