Baldur’s Gate 3 continues to sell well even ten months after its worldwide release, drawing tens of thousands of concurrent players per day. The average playtime of the game is also a good measure of its long-term viability.
Michael Douse, head of publishing at Larian, claims that the average Steam user spends more than 100 hours in Baldur’s Gate 3. “I really wanna meet the people pushing that average up,” he said, describing this statistic as “wild.”
Whether or not they beat the game, this covers every player that has ever used Valve’s platform to play Battlegrounds 3.
The average amount of the game on consoles is unknown, but even so, the number is rather remarkable. Remember that since the median playtime takes the middle number and is unaffected by outliers, it would be a more representative statistic (i.e. the data is less skewed).
Average playtime for popular RPGs on Steam
Note: Below are 20 popular single-player titles using CRPG or RPG tags on Steam (whether some of them are true role-playing games or not is a topic for a whole other debate). The playtime metric are VG Insights’ estimates, which are usually quite accurate, but may not be 100% correct due to a lack of official data from devs. We don’t use HowLongToBeat here because it indicates the average duration of a single playthrough, not the playtime.
- The average/median playtime for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is 76/20.6 hours, with a median of 50.9 hours.
- Elden Ring: 103.1 hours, with a 78.2 hour median;
- Fallout 4: 92.6 hours, with a 30.5-hour median;
- 91.6 hours (with a median of 59 hours) for Baldur’s Gate 3;
- Dark Souls III: 81.9 hours, with a 36.7-hour median;
- Dark Souls II: 77.9 hours, with a 43.8-hour median;
- Cyberpunk 2077: 75.6 hours, with a 48.4-hour median;
- Divinity: 73.3 hours (median is 36.9 hours) for Original Sin 2;
- Kenshi: 69.8 hours, with a 14-hour median;
- Wrath of the Righteous in Pathfinder takes 64.7 hours, with a median of 13.6 hours;
- 62.7 hours, with a median of 15.9 hours, is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt;
- Starfield: 58 hours, with a 35.2 hour median;
- Persona 5 Royal: 56.7 hours, with a 32.2 hour median;
- 56.6 hours (median = 16.3 hours) for Fallout: New Vegas;
- Infinite Wealth: Like a Dragon — 56.2 hours (median is 52.5 hours);
- 54.2 hours for Mass Effect Legendary Edition (median is 14.9 hours). ME1 took 21.7/9.8 hours, ME2 took 33.3/21.6 hours, and ME3 took 25.1/20 hours as the average/median for the original games;
- Kingmaker, Pathfinder 52.6 hours, with a 14.2 hour median;
- 50.9 hours (median is 15.6 hours) for Dark Souls (Prepare To Die Edition);
- Granblue Fantasy: The Relink takes 49.1 hours, with a 29-hour median;
- Persona 4 Golden takes 44.7 hours, with a 19-hour median.
A game’s quality cannot be determined by its gameplay length because different games may have varying replay values and/or less substance overall. Additionally, gamers will spend more time in an RPG if it emphasises multiplayer. We made an effort to exclude games like Diablo and Path of Exile off this list since, despite their online and cooperative aspects, most of them are still single-player games, like Borderlands 3 and Elden Ring.
Skyrim’s remarkable stats are hardly shocking considering how long-lasting and replayable the game is (mostly due to the modding community). It’s interesting to note that BG3 has longer average and median playtimes than any other CRPG on the list.
The average playtime of Beamdog’s remastered versions of the original Baldur’s Gate games is 22.6 hours for BG1 and 20.9 hours for BGII. But in our opinion, this data is not particularly representative, particularly when contrasted with Baldur’s Gate 3. The comparatively low median playtime of 4 and 2.5 hours, respectively, can be attributed to the fact that many individuals probably finished the original titles long before their Enhanced Editions were released on Steam. This also applies to the majority of older role-playing games and their remasters, including Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, and Planescape: Torment.
One more thing to note is that Bethesda has three titles in the top 20 (Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starfield), whereas From Software has four (Elden Ring, Dark Souls 1-3). Larian Studios (BG3, Divinity: Original Sin 1-2), Owlcat Games (Pathfinder series), CD Projekt (Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3), and Atlus (Persona series) all have two titles.
This indicates that many people have been logging hundreds of hours on these firms’ games. It will also be fascinating to see how many users have more than 1,000 hours!
And these are some additional Steam games with the categories RPG or CRPG that have a tonne of playtime:
- Yakuza: 44 hours (median is 31.7 hours); Like a Dragon;
- Deliverance from Kingdom Come: 42.8 hours (median: 18.8 hours);
- Persona 3 Reload: 40.2 hours, with a 26.8-hour median;
- Rogue Trader takes 38.6 hours (median is 17.5 hours) in Warhammer 40,000.
- Solasta: 37.5 hours (median is 14.7 hours) for the Magister’s Crown;
- Deadfire takes 37.4 hours (with a median of 11.5 hours) on Pillars of Eternity II.
- 35.8 hours (median is 9.2 hours) for Dragon Age: Origins;
- 35 hours (median is 11.2 hours) for the Pillars of Eternity;
- Final Fantasy XV: Thirty-two hours (14.2);
- HD Remaster of Final Fantasy X/X-2 — 30.8 hours (median is 10.2 hours);
- Divinity: Original Sin (Enhanced Edition): thirty-four hours (9.5 hours on average);
- Tales Of Arise: 30.2 hours, with a 20.8-hour median;
- Dragon’s Dogma 2: 29.4 hours, with an 18.1-hour median;
- Waste Area 3. — 28.4 hours, with a 12.3-hour median;
- The Dragon Age: Inquisition takes 26.5 hours, with a 5.4-hour median;
- The Final Fantasy VII Remake lasts 21.6 hours, with a 12.4-hour median;
- The Outer Worlds: 20.4 hours, with a 13.4-hour median;
- South Park: The Broken But Whole lasts for 19 hours, with a median of 12.6 hours.
- Tyranny: 17.3 hours, with a 6.1-hour median;
- Disco Elysium: 16.9 hours, with a 6.6-hour median.