Baldur’s Gate 3 can be quite tough. But is the tutorial too difficult? After all, millions of players have not gotten past it.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is arguably the best role-playing game to have been released in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, there are some players who haven’t even managed to complete the tutorial. Even before reaching the legendary Sword Coast, they have already thrown in the towel, turned their backs on Faerun, and likely broken Shadowheart’s heart in the process.
The number of these players is in the hundreds of thousands – probably even in the millions.
Where do the data come from? The basis of this data is the achievements on Steam. There, players can see which achievements have already been earned by other purchasers of the game, along with the percentage of the total player base that has completed the achievement.
Which achievement is being discussed? We are talking about the achievement “Fall from Avernus.” This is obtained once the flight on the Nautiloid has been successfully completed – basically the tutorial of the game. Usually, this section takes at most two hours, and even then, one has probably taken their time.
“Only” 91.2% of Baldur’s Gate 3 owners have earned this achievement (via steam). This means that tens of thousands of players have never made it past the tutorial.
Although there are no exact sales figures, SteamSpy estimates that Baldur’s Gate 3 has sold around 31 million copies – just on Steam. This would mean that around 3 million players never managed to complete the tutorial.
Why do many not get through the tutorial? The reasons for this are surely varied and cannot be precisely identified. Some possibilities include:
- Players who buy a game during the current hype but then actually have no time to play it.
- Others buy it and then find that it doesn’t run well on their PC, and the next PC purchase is still months away.
- Still, others have simply realized: The game is not for me. Especially turn-based combat doesn’t appeal to everyone, even though Baldur’s Gate 3 has managed to convince many of this principle.
Ultimately, it’s also not reliably possible to say how many have really failed at the tutorial or how many have never started the game after purchasing it. It likely wasn’t due to the difficulty of the tutorial, as that is quite moderate.
Are you among those who have never made it off the Nautiloid? Has Baldur’s Gate 3 also landed “unstated” on your Pile of Shame?
It’s a shame if players never get that far – because then they miss out on Gale’s very special love.
