In a year where The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came along and swept everyone off their feet not only with its astounding sales, but also with the universal praise it garnered, most would have imagined that it would be hard for another game to reach that same level. And yet, Larian Studios’ recently-released RPG sensation Baldur’s Gate 3 seems to be giving Nintendo’s open world title a run for its money- at least right now.
Currently, Baldur’s Gate 3 has a Metacritic score of 97 after 18 reviews, which makes it the year’s best-reviewed game so far at the time of writing, with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sitting at a score of 96 after 145 reviews. Meanwhile, on Opencritic, both games share the throne with a score of 96, though while Tears of the Kingdom has 144 reviews under its belt, Baldur’s Gate 3 currently only counts 32 on the aggregator website.
It is, of course, still early days so far, with a large number of outlets yet to publish their reviews and scores for Larian Studios’ RPG. As more reviews for the game begin getting published in the coming days, it’s possible that its score will drop.
As it stands right now, however, it’s the year’s highest-rated game, and in Metacritic’s all-time charts, only four games have a higher score- SoulCalibur, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and Grand Theft Auto 4 at 98, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time at 99.
Other games that also have a 97 score on Metacritic include the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto 5, Metroid Prime, and Halo: Combat Evolved, among others. Clearly, Baldur’s Gate 3 is in esteemed company, and is currently the 17th highest-rated game of all time on Metacritic.
The Larian RPG’s critical success has been reflected in its commercial performance as well, having climbed to No. 9 in Steam’s all-time charts of peak concurrent players (with over 814,000 players playing concurrently at its highest). Larian has said that the game’s launch numbers have exceeded the studio’s expectations by over 800%. Meanwhile, the excitement surrounding the game has also boosted its PS5 pre-orders significantly.
In our review of Baldur’s Gate 3, we awarded it a score of 10/10, saying, “Like Divinity: Original Sin 2, Baldur’s Gate 3 redefines what a role-playing game can offer in character-building, combat, story-telling and choice. It’s a compelling experience that simply shouldn’t be missed.” Read the full review through here.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently available only on PC, but is also coming to PS5 on September 6.
