Baldur's gate 3 anniversary statistics confirm the popularity of Astarion kissing and being turned into cheese wheel

Baldur's Gate 3 was released around this time last year. Even though Larian is gearing up for the next game, the studio continues to monitor what people do and do not do in the RPG. Larian, as it did late last year a few times, has compiled some interesting and strange data about how people got surprisingly weird playing a game which is surprising and weird when you don't do anything to get turned into a cheese.

Why do you choose to be antagonistic when something claims to be an immortal being with incredible wish powers? (Chaotic Neutrals do not answer.

Other stats showed how few people actually beat Honour Mode, Larian's extra-hard Ironman challenge added after launch. Only 141,660. This is compared to an incredible 1.2 million defeats. 76% of those players then deleted their save.

Larian was surprised to learn that the vast majority--93 percent--of players chose to play as custom characters. It's interesting to note that Astarion just barely beat Gale in popularity as the most played origin character. This is actually quite surprising! Turns out the power of babygirl and acting and meme status can, indeed, push past sort-of-adorable-yet-painfully-over-earnest protagonist (with a flying cat) appeal.

A cool graphic shows the most popular classes for each race. Dwarves have been pigeonholed into melee fighters such as paladins and barbarians. But there are some surprises. Monk is one of the most popular classes for halflings. Not as many as rogues or bards, but a significant minority likes the idea of a short king who can suplex. The most popular class, the paladin class, is not a top-class for the most popular race, which is elf.

I won't comment on the fact that more people have gotten dirty with the mind flayer.

But I will comment on the fact that you all petted the animals, which is righteous, just and good. It forgives any weird kinky sins committed in the bedroom.

Larian also released some statistics about the ending of the video game. We learned things like how many people hugged Gale in his god-form apotheosizing and how 3.3 million people killed the Netherbrain, with 200,000 of them having Gale blow themselves up to do so. To be honest, I thought the number would be higher. I guess people don’t like to use an easy-out button.

If you're still enamored of Baldur's Gate 3, then check out PC Gamer’s feature on Larian, one year after BG3, in which we spoke to them about development and what's coming up next: "I call this chaos at scale," stated CEO Swen Vincke.