It’s no secret that Baldur’s Gate 3 has been a massive success for Larian Studios. It won Game Of The Year at 2023’s The Game Awards, and over a year after its initial launch, Larian is still pushing out game updates and gaining fans all over the globe (including in the Vatican). But a recent report from the Irish Independent has revealed that the game wasn’t just a hit with players–it was also a massive financial success, raking in roughly $260 million in profits in 2023.
According to the figures shared by the Independent, Larian earned a total of $466 million in revenue in 2023, nearly 20 times what the studio earned in 2022. The massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3 clearly had a major hand in the studio’s financial success, and although Larian has yet to release the game’s sales numbers, the Independent cites 15 million copies sold. 2023 marked a major change for the studio, which was operating at a $223,000 loss in 2022.
Part of the game’s success is likely due to its sheer level of replayability. Players can mod the game to their heart’s content (even on console) and play through the story as their own original player-character, or step into the shoes of the game’s companions and play as one of them. For those looking to wreak havoc on Faerûn, there’s the Dark Urge character origin option, and players who wish to bring others into their adventures can make use of the game’s robust online multiplayer mode or split-screen couch co-op, all for a single $70 purchase. No microtransactions, no DLC, and seemingly infinite content might explain why the game now sees more daily users in 2024 than it did in 2023–an extremely rare occurrence when it comes to single-player RPGs.
As for the future, Larian CEO Swen Vincke says the studio has no current plans to start work on Baldur’s Gate 4 (for now), but the team behind the best RPG of 2023 is currently laying the groundwork for a new that Vincke says he hopes will take players by surprise and “dwarf” Baldur’s Gate 3 by comparison.
“Hopefully nobody’s going to leak it for us, but it’s different than what you think it is,” Vincke said of the untitled RPG. “But it is still familiar enough for you to recognize that it’s something that we are making.”