Baldur’s Gate 3 tops pre-orders on PSN as it exceeds 800,000 players on PC

PS5 players are getting hyped for the CRPG

Larian Studios has rolled a critical hit on this skill check, it seems: Baldur’s Gate 3 has moved up to become the best-selling pre-order on PSN in the US with its Deluxe Edition, notably dethroning popular sports games Madden NFL 24, EA Sports FC 24, and NBA 2K24, which all have huge player bases. The CRPG also passed the likes of Mortal Kombat 1 – which itself had hype from last weekend’s EVO 2023 fighting game tournament behind it – as well as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

It seems like PS5 players are really getting swept up in the hype that Baldur’s Gate 3 built around itself since launching on PC last week. Launch day saw almost half a million people dive into the adventure in Faerûn on Steam, a number that increased throughout the weekend: According to SteamDB, Larian Studios’ Dungeons & Dragons game peaked at 814,666 players on Sunday – most impressive for a title of this genre and a testament to the quality of this game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has been reviewed over 100,000 times on Steam with over 92% of the ratings being positive.

More and more people are getting sucked into the amazing black hole that is Baldur's Gate 3.

Larian Studios

It’s too early to say what the long term implications of this success might be, but Larian Studios is certainly making one hell of a case for CRPGs and, more generally, RPGs with turn-based combat – something many publishers and studios have been viewing as dead ends for a while now, focusing on more action instead. Square Enix’ Naoki Yoshida expressed similar thoughts ahead of the launch of Final Fantasy 16, to name a prominent example.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming to PS5 on September 6, 2023, the day Starfield is coming to PC and Xbox Series X|S. Larian is working on a version of its CRPG for Microsoft’s console as well, but issues with getting the splitscreen co-op to run on the Series S has severely delayed this.

It’s likely that this will be the first CRPG for many players, who are primarily gaming on consoles, but going by the praise the controls on the Steam Deck are getting, Larian seems to have nailed this challenging aspect.

For more on the game, check out our Baldur’s Gate 3 class tier list, learn how to get your special leave request for the PS5 launch, and get to know the Baldur’s Gate 3 cast.