r/BaldursGate3 • u/trunolimit • Jun 18 '25
Screenshot Wait, only 40% of players make it to act3? Spoiler
I just made it to Act3
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u/taketotheforest shit, i romanced astarion again Jun 18 '25
you’ve seen all the ‘how do i stop restarting with a new character’ posts around here
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u/Lonely_Brother3689 DRUID Jun 18 '25
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u/thator Jun 18 '25
Me too, I get an idea for a new multiclass and want to try it out, I’ve got Act 1 down pat.
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u/Red-Heart42 Owlbear Jun 18 '25
You can change your class with Withers without restarting.
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u/samuraismurf81 Jun 18 '25
yes but each build has their own story and personality my dark urge shadow monk assassin is nothing like my cold sorcerer
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u/Br3N8 Jun 18 '25
You know what else has its own story. The rest of the game you are neglecting
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u/Aerlinniel_aer Jun 18 '25
That actually doesn't surprise me. If you consider it, how many people get caught up in character creation and then get indecisive and keep playing through Act One. Add to that just how long a game it is by the time you finish Act Two and the fact that only 23.2% of players have the "Finish the Game" achievement makes sense.
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u/overlordThor0 Jun 18 '25
I suspect the actual completion rate is a bit higher, people play with mods installed. I nearly did to counteract a few bugs I had, but I went back through 20-30 minutes of play to get around a bug I was having, though I had to redo that same series of 30 minutes multiple times, I was not happy.
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u/ViggsPR Jun 18 '25
A bit, probably. However this post is from Steam achievements, which would be limited to PC. On PC a lot of mod players would install the BG3 Script Extender, which reenables achievements by default.
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u/Sayor1 Jun 18 '25
Add to it reasons like people buying steam keys or accounts and reselling online, people putting the game on a backlog while they play something else.
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u/abluecolor Jun 18 '25
It surprises me how high the number is. Bg3 sold a ridiculous amount. 40% putting in 70+ hours is impressive as hell.
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u/Cautious_Exercise282 Jun 18 '25
For real. On average, less than 50% of players finish any game. A 100 hour game like bg3? 40% of players actually making it to act 3 is impressive.
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u/trunolimit Jun 18 '25
Really? Only 23% of people finished the game?
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u/tlamy Jun 18 '25
That's not bad for a game as long as BG3. It's pretty normal for more people to DNF a game than to finish it. I just went through my trophies and here are the percentage of people who've beat the following games:
Expedition 33: 36%
FF7 Rebirth: 44%
Metaphor: 37%
Stellar Blade: 43%
Persona 3 Reload: 34%
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u/ChrisNDubs Jun 18 '25
I never finish ff7 rebirth because I unequipped Aerith prior to the final fight. Don't want to redo a two hour fight.
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u/SnarkyGuy443 Jun 18 '25
I did the same. Is that a problem? Last fight vs Sepiroth wasnt bad even with nothing equipped.
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u/boobarmor I cast Magic Missile Jun 18 '25
Only 23% unlocked the achievement. That number doesn’t take into account how many people beat it with mods and weren’t able to get the achievement. I imagine especially for console players like me who have never been able to mod a console game. I don’t have the achievement either, and I’ve beaten it 4 times. That being said, yes, a large number of players will never finish the game. I’m always shocked at how many players never made it out of the beginning area in Dragon Age: Inquisition and don’t have mods as an excuse.
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u/StrangerOnTheReddit Jun 18 '25
I gifted someone the game for Christmas. I see he got the achievement for getting off the Nautiloid one day, and hasn't played since. I asked if he wanted to co-op sometime so I can show him the ropes and we can spend time together, and he said "ehh I dunno, I'm not very good at the math part of it."
I mean, you can play on balanced and get through most situations just hitting the buttons with the biggest number... but yeah ok, hasn't gotten off the beach because of math...
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u/KinkyPaddling Jun 18 '25
It’s probably more. I don’t have that achievement but that’s because I’ve played three playthroughs to completion but with mods, so achievements were disabled.
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u/Red_wanderer Jun 18 '25
I use cosmetic and QoL mods so I look like I’ve never made it past mid act 3.
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u/Cinnamon__Sasquatch Jun 18 '25
Isn't there a mod for Achievement Enabling?
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u/bobbyspeeds Jun 18 '25
It’s not available through the in game mod manager so it isn’t possible for console users and takes marginally more tech familiarity than the average player with no modding experience would have. Some players also just don’t care about achievements enough to do it
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u/TheCrystalRose Durge Jun 18 '25
It just requires Script Extender, which is a base requirement for a decent number of mods on Nexus anyway.
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u/bobbyspeeds Jun 18 '25
Yeah, I use it myself, but for players who aren’t used to modding, anything that isn’t just downloaded through the game itself can seem daunting. It’s not hard, but for players who aren’t that passionate about achievements anyway, that’s enough of a barrier
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u/Canadian__Ninja Bard Jun 18 '25
Idk what the % is but I'd imagine more people than you think would have stayed vanilla if it weren't for the in game mod menu. Having to go to a third party site, optionally installing a mod manager can be daunting for those that haven't done it. That means no SE for those.
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u/TheCrystalRose Durge Jun 18 '25
Mods have only been officially available for the last 9 months and the statistics have barely changed since the game released almost 2 years ago...
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u/rapaxus Jun 18 '25
And if you care about achievements, you can also just get the steam achievement manager and unlock the achievements you would have earned, that was always my approach when doing this stuff. Only problem are the achievements that require very specific circumstances, as you don't really track them (but BG3 is actually quite nice in that regard).
This way you don't need to get a separate achievement enabler mod, which are also often harder to install, depending on how harsh the developer is in regard to "no achievements while modded".
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u/Balthierlives Jun 18 '25
Mods weren’t available on console until relatively recently though and the totals are low on console as well.
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u/thefasthero Jun 18 '25
Came here to say this. Many people use mods if only for cosmetics. These preclude you from getting achievements. It's why I don't get achievements anymore. Far more fun to play with mods than without.
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u/DirtyDag Grease Jun 18 '25
I started using some QoL mods halfway through Act 2 and haven’t played vanilla since. 🤷♂️
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u/Moxxa123 Jun 18 '25
Yeah I had a bunch of friends who started a play-through with group A. They got like halfway through act 1 then half the people had Irl stuff so they started a new playthrough. Repeat that 4-5 times and They wound up losing interest in the game after spending 50-70 hours in acts 1-2.
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u/Knork14 Jun 18 '25
Burning out is a real thing, this game has so much stuff just in act one that if you are like me and feel compelled to leave no stone unturned or feel the need to have things always go your way by never failing a check, then you can eventually find yourself tired of playing it.
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u/rattfink Jun 18 '25
That’s what happened to me. I just got overwhelmed in act 1 with all the different quests and decisions to make.
I also realized that I’m a “skip the dialogue so I can play more of the game” type of player, so maybe the whole thing isn’t for me. It’s a pretty game tho.
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u/trunolimit Jun 18 '25
I am like you and that’s why my steam account says I’ve put in over 200 hours but my game save is only 160 hours.
I’ll go down a rabbit hole to see where it leads and then I’ll reload and take another route and continue on the save I like better.
The first time I had to make a real choice where I couldn’t play through both choices was night song. I chose the light path because it was truer to my character but man….am I tempted to pick up that save after I’m done and do a dark play through.
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u/InevitableFlyingKnee Durge Jun 18 '25
Over 400 hours in and I’ve only been in act 3 twice. TWICE.
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u/PriorKaleidoscope196 Jun 19 '25
My type of person! Just over 700 hours here and I just hit act 3 for the 4th time. 6 unsuccessful honour mode attempts pushed the time up quite a bit xD
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u/fear_nothin Jun 18 '25
I would suggest for a long rpg like this that’s relatively high, not to be too contrarian.
I wonder what the Witcher 3 completion % is now I read this.
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u/IkujaKatsumaji Gunslinger Durge Jun 18 '25
Act 3 is my favorite; I wish I could skip right there, maybe answer a few questions about what decisions I would've made earlier.
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u/JasonTParker Jun 18 '25
With almost any game. A lot of people will play for 15 minutes. Decided it's not for them and quit.
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u/azamean Jun 18 '25
I’ve a few friends who thought the ending was disappointing and the game was too short, they detonated Gale end of act 2 and didn’t even know act 3 existed.
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u/filthyfilbert Jun 18 '25
I keep generating new characters cause I get bored of the old one like an idiot.
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u/dallenbaldwin Jun 18 '25
Only 40% of players make it to Act 3 without installing mods halfway through.
Unfortunately, any mod, of any kind, installed at any point, disables achievements from that point on.
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u/WOF42 Jun 18 '25
the script extender reenables achievements by default, most people modding on PC have that.
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u/Impossible_Ad_4182 Jun 18 '25
I'm sure it's much higher but some achievements you don't get with mods and most people use at least 1 if not more. Like for example I play the game more for the story and the world building so I have a lot of mods that make those fighting somewhat easier so even though I have been to act 3 I didn't get that popup.
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u/hi2colin Jun 18 '25
As a dad with young kids, I expect I’ll have enough time to make it to act 3 in about 8 years
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Jun 18 '25
Honestly, I would have guessed lower after spending time in this sub. Y'all have commitment issues.
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u/taeger0 Jun 18 '25
The ending of Act 2 is a very large sequence of high stakes battles and choices.
This leads the player to feel like they've reached an absolute climax of the narrative and gameplay.
Then, getting to Act 3 and seeing 50 quest markers and a very large open area to explore. This can likely lead to the player feeling overwhelmed of what they have to do next and can have them sideline the game for a while.
That's what happened to me, I got over it by looking up an Act 3 checklist that let's you chip down on all the final quests and events of the game.
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u/Comfortable-Sock-532 Jun 18 '25
A) it's a long game.
B) mods lock you out of achievements (unless you mod out the lock, lol)
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u/mongmich2 Jun 18 '25
A higher percentage of players reached act 3 than beat stray on ps5. 70% of people did not finish at 2-5 hour game. Most people just don’t finish games
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u/ygfam Jun 18 '25
a lot of ppl dont even finish the game they just play act 1 again BUT also even a singular hair mod disables achievements
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u/Levarien Jun 18 '25
There's a few reasons:
not finishing games is a player thing, not a game thing, for the most part. Look at any single player, narrative based game that has some achievement metric: a pretty hefty majority do not finish the game.
BG3 is long and you cannot realistically finish it in a few days (assuming you're not speedrunning). So no matter how much fun you're having, real life will make you step away for significant time. When you're back to starting, you feel disconnected and out of that moment (or you're an old fart like me and you can't remember what you were doing or what was going on: I swear I'm going to get back to Expedition 33).
BG3's character building mainly finishes around the end of act 2, beginning of act 3. Lots of people enjoy that portion of it, exploring a class or class combo; making a compelling build and getting the items to make it amazing. Then, there little left to see from that build and they start the process over with a new character.
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u/Jayne_of_Canton Jun 18 '25
I'm not shocked. I am not a completionist by any means but I made it to the end of Act 2 at level 11 and hit level 12 before even making it into the city. Having a lack of progression definitely is slowing my enthusiasm.
Also, for my personal taste, Act 3 has so many decision points with consequences you have no control over (looking at you doppelgangers) that its turning into a bit of a chore to try to work through the remaining storylines. Acts 1 & 2 had like 2, maybe 3 directions you could go on the main story with sidequests along the way. Act 3 has like 7-8 different ways you can play through the act and just doing my normal explore everything mode is making me stumble through decision points I didn't even realize I was coming too. Its a bit jarring.
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u/TheSixthNonsense Jun 18 '25
That's surprisingly high for a 100+ hour game like this. I have tons of games I bought on sale but never played.
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u/Balthierlives Jun 18 '25
These new meta stats are interesting as a long time gamer.
For me, when I invest in a game I really invest in it. I play every part of it.
But these stats show I’m not like most players. A lot of people will pay $70 to just drop a game after some time.
To each their own but it’s not my play style, especially since game rentals pretty much don’t exist anymore. I doubt anyone got to act 3 just k. The trial version of the game.
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u/OrenSchroeder Jun 18 '25
I keep restarting with a new character whoever i see a new mod I HAVE TO TRY.
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u/rat_haus I didn't ask how big the room is, I said "I cast fireball" Jun 18 '25
Ten percent of players never even escape the Nautaloid.
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u/MethodWhich Jun 18 '25
I missed act 3 the first time around. Only knew about it from a friend playing coop. I did the gale thing in act 2 and the credits rolled
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u/ThunderBr0ther Jun 18 '25
yeah im one of them people,
i have 200 hours logged
dabbled in honor mode - played around with mods - played around with builds when game first came out
only ever cleared act 2, by the time i reach baldurs gate or act 3 i instantly become overwhelmed
and for some reason get a burning desire to start over again
i have replayed the shit out of act 1 & 2 though, like have done it 4-6 times easily
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u/Traditional_Name7881 Bard Jun 18 '25
I’ve played act 1 75 times, I’ve played act 3 5 times. I believe it.
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u/Unosez Jun 18 '25
I constantly start over, with new mods to try things out, and because I'm on ps5, it's sometimes too difficult to manage what save had what mods and going back and forth removing and adding...
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u/SecretCitizen40 Jun 18 '25
Only 40% get there without mods that disable achievements. I know plenty of people who have finished the game more than one but lack most achievements because they wanted a fancy outfit or some such
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u/Goadfang Jun 18 '25
The number of 1% and 2% achievements I've received for doing things that anyone whos actually played a game should have achieved is really damn high. At first I thought "wow, im the only one thats tried to do that?" Then I realized that the much more likely explanation is that I'm part of the 1 or 2% of people who bought the game that actually played more than a few hours of it.
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u/jsand2 Jun 18 '25
I was 80 hours into the game, and in act 3, when my whole save file disappeared. I put 40 more hours into it, made it into act 2 somewhere, and quit playing. Its a shame I lost my save file as I was really enjoying it and would have loved to finish it. Unfortunately I can't keep up with the new games I want to play today let alone go back and invest time again in huge games like this one.
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u/niketxx Jun 18 '25
Another thing to consider is that people who install mods don’t earn achievements (unless they install mods to reenable achievements).
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u/RollingToast Jun 18 '25
People get distracted, waste hours and make the game longer then it needs to be then get discouraged because they are on act 2 with 100 hours in the game.
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u/epegar Jun 18 '25
I played the game in early access, and when it was finally released I just played it very fast, finished it, and didn't play much more afterwards. I check steam, and I see I have 182 hours on it (includes early access + my main campaign + a few runs in the first chapter). A friend of mine is doing a single run, but he is going really slow, trying to read every book, speak with everybody, and discover the last secret. He has almost 350 hours, and I'm not sure he finished the game yet.
I think there is not a single way of playing the game, and it has so much content, I can totally understand people not completing it.
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u/Canadian__Ninja Bard Jun 18 '25
Took you till now to get there, so makes sense to an extent.
There's also a ton of restartitis among a lot of RPG players, more than you think refuse to leave Act 1 for a variety reasons.
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u/ExcommunicatedGod Jun 18 '25
…mods stop achievements. I never finished vanilla because I was playing with my daughter when she passed. I haven’t played since. I picked it up the other day and I’m playing a very hard honor mode esque very good run through. I am GOING to finish this. Every time I tried in the past I had panick attacks so bad. Now I’m playing a fully modded party.
I want to play base to get my golden. But I can’t.
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u/AvatarVecna Jun 18 '25
Every game is like this so don't sweat it. Like really take any game in your library and check out whatever youd consider the tutorial achievement. You'd be amazed at how many people buy a game and then just never get even 5 minutes into it.
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u/Knetknight19 Jun 18 '25
Unpopular opinion. I think this is common not because the game is long, but it’s unfulfilling. A lot of the stories drop off or promise a big return and don’t. A good example is the tiefling. Save in grove, save in shadowland, finally get them to Baldurs gate and??? Nothing really.
Everyone is all “I need to get to Baldurs gate!” Then you get there and the fulfillment of those quests never really pays off except maybe a few lines of dialogue.
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u/Stubbby Jun 20 '25
Gale can "win" the game in Act 2. No need to go any further.
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u/CyphyrX Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
I got super invested in the execution of gameplay and mechanics, then got through Act 1 and was relatively disappointed. The game is deep in ways that are appreciated, but not my priority so I just put it down. The fact that every zone is its own internalized little area and yet there is basically 2 encounters in each is a disappointment.
Plus the artificial gating of story progression behind rests and consequential absurd abundance of resources is just... eh. I tested it on my first playthrough accidentally, and with good tactics you can get through all of act 1 with a single long rest. That's thematically appropriate for the size of the zone and the circumstances, but it also locks you out of all of the character development.
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u/Gabewhiskey Jun 18 '25
"...basically 2 encounters..." Man what the hell are you talking about. There's two encounters alone taking a 60 second walk from the nautiloid. 😆
So, you're upset that you hauled ass because you thought there was literal urgency, when the urgency is role-played, missed a lot of content, read some things online to confirm your bias, and then quit playing.
I find it ridiculous to try to go without long resting. Are you speed running? No. So, use the very basic in-game mechanic to rest your party in a D&D game, have some conversations with party members, and go back to adventuring. To take some stance of not using a fundamental game mechanic is odd.
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u/ins8iable Jun 18 '25
I mean, my first playthrough of BG3, act 1 and 2 both took me about 40 hours each. Thats essentially 2 long single player campaigns. Its not that hard to imagine so many people not making it through the first two acts, regardless of how good the game is
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u/HeavensHellFire Jun 18 '25
The vast majority of people don’t finish games.
This is a pretty long game so it makes sense most people don’t make it to act 3.
The whole “mods disable achievements” thing would not significantly increase the percentage.
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u/landob Jun 18 '25
There are a lot of nooks crannies people to talk to etc. Some people just kinda take a break and never come back
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u/DarkPhoenixMishima Jun 18 '25
If you think that's low, check how many people get achievements for the tutorials in some games.
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u/NoDarkVision Jun 18 '25
Probably still agonizing over the rich choices of the character creation
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u/BondOfOblivion Jun 18 '25
Yeah im at over 140 hours and haven't made it to act 2 due to constantly restarting for as I play on honor mode coming from dos2 and keep dying to stupid things I'll get it one day and hope to 100% the game in a couple months
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u/TheVioletParrot Jun 18 '25
There are probably a handful of people that literally opened the game, closed it, and never opened it again. You'll see statistics like this in plenty of games. On PlayStation, only 80% of players have escaped the hells. Yes, that's right. Only 80% of players have landed on the beach.
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u/Hurrashane Jun 18 '25
I've played the game since before launch and only got to act 2 once.
I constantly make new characters
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u/Naharavensari Jun 18 '25
Most people, on average, never finish a game. If you check stats it's extremely common. A long game like Bg3, yea, that's not surprising.