D&D: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Players Spend Almost 10,000 Years in Character Creation Before Being Transformed Into Cheese

The numbers are out, and Larian studios has a lot to say about the people playing through Baldur’s Gate 3 and their habits.

Baldur’s Gate 3 players have spent almost the entire post-heresy Imperium just creating characters, according to numbers released from BG3 developer Larian Studios. While the tech-priests on Mars and Holy Terra were trying desperately to recover technology lost to the ravages of a heretical civil war, people were really out there just trying to get their elf to look right.

Although it hasn’t been a full ten thousand years yet. Per Larian’s numbers, it is only 8196 years in the Character Creator, so far. Long enough that Genestealers have infiltrated the Imperium, but the first Hive Fleets and full-on Genestealer cults haven’t yet been encountered.

But the numbers tell a vivid story about the antics of players in Baldur’s Gate 3, far more than just how long spent in character creation. There’s a surprising number of sentient cheese wheels out there too.

Baldur’s Gate 3 By the Numbers – 1.24 Million Wedges of Cheese and Counting

Larian Studios made the big announcement earlier this week, releasing some surprising information about the game in a series of images that highlight some of the absurdity around 2023’s best cRPG.

For instance, players have spent a combined 8196 years in character creation. And 1.3 million players have completed the game, meaning that for every character that completes the game, around 55 hours were spent in character creation. Not necessarily on that character, but, 55 hours sounds about right for how long it took me to finally get my playthrough going.

That’s a whole lot of Down, Down, Down By the River.

While we’re on the 1.3 million players who have finished the game, almost as many have also been transformed into a sentient wheel of cheese. So if that happens, you’re probably on the right track.

Another interesting set of numbers revolves around the brand-new Honour Mode, introduced in the latest patch. More than 158,000 Honour Mode playthroughs have been started, and only 464 have made it to the end so far, which is honestly impressive. Baldur’s Gate 3 is not a short game.

Honour Mode is Larian’s “ironman” option, where you have one playthrough, you get one save file (so no save scumming), and when your party dies, the save is deleted. A true challenge if you’re up for it.

Other notable stats include which subclasses are the most popular in Baldur’s Gate 3. This one really catches the eye, because some of these subclasses are a little underwhelming in 5th Edition, notably the Beast Master Ranger (which is significantly improved in Baldur’s Gate 3), and the Berserker Barbarian (which is actually playable in BG3). The fact that so many people choose Battle Master as their option for Fighter is telling as well.

But WotC will hang on to the Champion Fighter until the day they die (or, you know, leadership changes).

One last bit of number crunching reveals that god’s favorite princess, Shadowheart, is the most popular romance option, followed by Karlach and Lae’zel. But more popular than either of those, is petting the Forgotten Realms’ goodest boy, Scratch.

Check out Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam.

The numbers people are looking for now? How many Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards will Baldur’s Gate 3 win?

Author: J.R. Zambrano

Bell of Lost Souls Staff Writer and DM, J.R. covers RPGs of all stripes and on occasion eats sandwiches. You can ask him about either at [email protected]