The Game Awards recently named Baldur’s Gate 3 Game of the Year. That beat the new Zelda and Spider-Man 2. But that doesn’t mean that the role-playing game has had the most success in every area. The action RPG Diablo 4 itself tops a different list.
This is how well Baldur’s Gate 3 was received:
This is where Diablo 4 beats Baldur’s Gate 3: Despite Baldur’s Gate 3’s success, it lags behind other games in some categories. StreamElements recently published new statistics for 2023.
These include the games with the most successful start week on Twitch. Diablo 4 is by far in first place here. In the first week after release, the game was watched for 70 million hours on the platform. The places after that are:
Although Baldur’s Gate 3 can rightly be called game of the year, Blizzard’s huge hit is still a huge success, at least according to numbers on Twitch. And there are several reasons for that.
Colleague Michael Graf from GameStar explains what gives Baldur’s Gate 3 such a special position in gaming:
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No game had as strong a release week as Diablo 4
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a single player game. These traditionally have a harder time on Twitch than multiplayer games, MMOs and service games in general. This is mainly because multiplayer games inherently appeal to more players, that’s what they’re designed for.
Diablo 4 in particular also builds on a long legacy of games that have all been hugely popular, or at least hugely successful. Even if numbers from Steam wishlists are missing, it can be assumed that Diablo 4 was the most anticipated game of 2023, perhaps even of the last 10 years.
The pre-release beta alone attracted over 1 million players – 10 times more than Larian even expected with Baldur’s Gate 3.
At Blizzcon 2023 we were already able to get information about the future of Diablo 4 from the developers:
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In addition, Baldur’s Gate 3, as a role-playing game, is based heavily on story. Those who play themselves usually don’t want to be spoiled. You can only watch on Twitch if you are not playing yourself, have already finished or are a big fan of the streamer in question.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is aimed at an audience that likes tricky puzzles, quaint stories and great character development. Diablo 4 relies largely on gameplay and is looking for a base of casual players – and therefore significantly more interested parties.
Accordingly, more people are also watching streamers who already have experience in Diablo 4. There you can see how best to create content and which builds are currently strong. In Baldur’s Gate 3 this is not necessary. Nevertheless, Baldur’s Gate 3 is likely to be the winner of most players’ hearts, simply because the boss delights the entire Internet with his knight’s armor.