Baldur’s Gate 3 Breaks 814K Steam CCU, But Larian Wants the Next Game to Be Smaller (and to Stay Independent)

Baldur’s Gate 3 continues to set new records for concurrent players on Steam, demonstrating its immense popularity. In our previous report, the game had already reached an impressive 646K simultaneous users, securing the tenth spot on the all-time chart.

Our predictions were surpassed as Baldur’s Gate 3 soared above the ninth-ranked game, Goose Goose Duck, which peaked at 702K concurrent users. In fact, the game recently reached an astounding 814K players, as reported eleven hours ago. This places Baldur’s Gate 3 in a position to challenge the current eighth-ranked game, Hogwarts Legacy, which holds the record at 879K concurrent players. While weekends are typically when concurrency records are broken and we are now on Monday, Baldur’s Gate 3 may still give it a try next weekend.

Despite this incredible success, Larian Studios doesn’t seem keen on creating another game as massive as Baldur’s Gate 3 for their next project. This sentiment was expressed by CEO Swen Vincke in a Bloomberg interview. Vincke indicated a preference for working on smaller games going forward and even hinted at Larian’s readiness to handle multiple projects simultaneously.

If you were hoping for a revival of Divinity: Fallen Heroes, the turn-based tactics game co-developed with Logic Artists and announced in 2019 but placed on hold due to Baldur’s Gate 3’s prioritization, unfortunately, that won’t be happening. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Vincke confirmed that Fallen Heroes is canceled for good, despite the positive preview it received from Chris Wray before being put on indefinite hold.

Another interesting detail from the Bloomberg interview is Larian’s desire to maintain independence amidst the ongoing wave of consolidation in the gaming industry. Internal documents revealed during the Microsoft vs FTC trial indicated that Xbox was considering Larian (among other developers) as a potential acquisition target. To this, Vincke responded:

“It’s always flattering. I’m getting older, but I’m certainly not done yet. The strength of this company is that I’m deeply invested in gameplay and have the final say in decision-making. We can prioritize the games we create.”

Whatever Larian Studios has in store after Baldur’s Gate 3, it is sure to capture the attention of the entire industry following the immense success of their latest release.