Larian Studios’ long-anticipated role-playing title Baldur’s Gate 3 has experienced an insane number of sales in just the first week of its launch in early access. This is not entirely surprising, considering the original two Baldur’s Gate titles are considered by many to be among the best D&D-based video games to date, and it’s been exactly 20 years since the release of Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn.
The early access version of Baldur’s Gate 3, set in the Forgotten Realms, uses the Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition ruleset and allows gamers to customize their player character by choosing from 16 races, 13 classes and subclasses, and a robust selection of physical attributes. It’s possible to spend hours in the character creator before even starting the game, and this makes one wonder who exactly players are creating with such a plethora of choices.
Developer Larian Studios has been busy collecting data since Baldur’s Gate 3 came out in early access, keeping track of the most popular choices made by gamers when creating their novice hero. All of the data was plugged into an analytics system, which popped out the quintessential player character based on an amalgamation of the most frequently selected attributes. The results were, according to Larian Studios, kind of a letdown.
"Congratulations, you’ve basically made the default Vault Dweller. What the hell, guys. We gave you demon eyes, horns, and even tails. We are sorely disappointed.”
The company doesn’t only rely on player submitted bug reports to find and fix problems. Analytics systems are constantly running in the background as people play Baldur’s Gate 3, collecting data, compiling usage statistics, and providing additional insights to help Larian Studios improve the game and troubleshoot issues. These statistics are collected anonymously and are part of why the studio has already released three hotfixes for Baldur’s Gate 3, targeting crashes and other bugs.
This collected data can also provide some fun and interesting insights, such as the fact that players’ ideal hero is practically Fallout’s Vault Dweller. Larian Studios has promised to divulge additional tidbits in the next Community Update, which can be accessed through the Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam page.
The third hotfix for Baldur’s Gate 3 addressed a few game crashes and also resolved an issue that occurred if players allowed Gale to die, which would cause a required plot item to end up missing. Additionally, the hotfix put a damper on the fun of some thieving players, who had discovered that they could easily steal from merchants simply by equipping items right out of their inventory. Additional patches are incoming but, in the meantime, if players continue to experience frequent crashes or graphical glitches, Larian Studios recommends playing the game on DX11 mode.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available in early access on PC and Mac.
Source: Baldur’s Gate 3 Community Page