Circana shared the top three Steam games by player engagement in September. Baldur’s Gate 3 was the leader among all premium titles on the platform.
- Mat Piscatella, executive director and video game industry analyst at Circana, revealed that Baldur’s Gate 3 was second only to Counter-Strike 2, the successor to Valve’s free-to-play hit CS:GO, in player engagement among US Steam users last month.
- Starfield ranked 3rd, indicating a strong debut for Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG.
- Interestingly, Baldur’s Gate 3 only ranked 20th on PlayStation 5. Piscatella didn’t share more data, so it is unclear what the top games on the platform were.
In September, according to Circana’s Player Engagement Tracker, Baldur’s Gate III ranked 2nd in player engagement on Steam (monthly % of panel playing), behind only Counter-Strike 2. Starfield ranked 3rd.
On PS5, Baldur’s Gate III ranked 20th in the same metric.— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) October 18, 2023
In September, Counter-Strike 2 (and CS:GO) averaged well over 1 million peak concurrent players per day globally (via SteamDB). Baldur’s Gate 3 attracted between 350k-500k concurrent users daily, while Starfield peaked at 330k CCU after launch and averaged around 200k CCU per day throughout the month.
Although 1+ million concurrent players are the norm for an evergreen multiplayer hit like Counter-Strike, Baldur’s Gate 3 boasts one of the highest retention rates of any single-player game. After peaking at over 875k CCU in August, it is still played by hundreds of thousands of users ever day, even more than two months after its global launch.
Daily concurrent player count in Counter-Strike 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Starfield in September 2023 (via SteamDB)
Earlier this week, Circana also shared data on the best-selling video games and hardware in the US for September 2023. Starfield topped the charts, outselling titles like Mortal Kombat 1 and EA Sports FC 24.
Thanks to a strong debut, it is already ranked as the 7th best-selling game of 2023 year-to-date, behind titles like CoD: Modern Warfare II, Diablo IV, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Hogwarts Legacy. Baldur’s Gate is missing from Circana’s charts, because Larian Studios doesn’t share its digital sales data with analysts.