Baldur’s Gate 3 Third Anniversary Stats Reveal Most Killed NPCs, Best Weapons and Some Wild Player Habits

Baldur’s Gate 3 turned three years old on August 4, 2026, and Larian Studios is marking the occasion the way they always do — by pulling back the curtain on exactly what players have been up to in Faerun. Greeting everyone as “naughty number-loving nerds,” the studio dropped a fresh batch of infographics and statistics covering NPC kill counts, final-battle weapon choices, mod downloads, and some genuinely baffling hardware decisions. The numbers are illuminating, occasionally incriminating, and in at least one case, deeply concerning about the moral character of people who don’t pick the Dark Urge origin.

Most Killed Story NPCs — Zevlor Tops the Body Count

The headline stat from the infographic is the most-killed story NPCs across all playthroughs, and the results say a lot about how players actually engage with Baldur’s Gate 3’s cast.

• Zevlor — 12.31 million deaths (most killed NPC overall)
• Rolan — 8.62 million deaths
• Isobel — 7.20 million deaths
• Volo — 4.62 million deaths
• Barcus Wroot — 2.66 million deaths (2.1 million of which Larian notes came from players who “accidentally” flung him from the windmill)
• Alfira — 2.62 million deaths

Zevlor, the argumentative tiefling refugee leader from the Druid’s Grove in Act 1, sits at the top of the casualty list by a significant margin at over 12 million deaths. Larian noted the deaths of several characters — like Zevlor, Rolan, and Isobel — can happen through negligence as much as active malice. Miss the kidnapping questline, fail a crucial check at the wrong moment, or simply not know what’s coming, and these characters die through player inattention rather than deliberate murder. Volo’s entry prompted a wry response from Larian themselves: “Not sure what Volo did to you all to deserve this.”

Barcus Wroot’s windmill figure is particularly funny — 2.1 million of his 2.66 million deaths came from players who sent him sailing off that windmill. The quote marks around “accidentally” in Larian’s note suggest the studio is not buying the innocent act.

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The Alfira Problem — Non-Dark Urge Players Are the Real Murderers

This is the stat that has the community doing some serious self-reflection. More non-Dark Urge players have killed Alfira than Dark Urge players.

Here’s why that’s remarkable. Alfira is the sweet tiefling bard you encounter in Act 1’s Grove. If you’re playing a Dark Urge character and she joins your camp before a long rest, you will kill her — it’s a forced cutscene that happens automatically, designed to show the player what they’re dealing with as the Dark Urge. You have essentially zero agency in the matter by default (there is a metagaming workaround involving knocking her out on first meeting, which causes a different bard to show up at camp in her place — and it looks like many Dark Urge players figured this out, which is why their Alfira kill rate is lower than you’d expect).

Non-Dark Urge players have no such excuse. Every one of those murders was a deliberate choice. Larian’s data shows Alfira accounts for 48% of her 2.62 million total deaths in Dark Urge runs — meaning the other 52% came from players who simply chose to do it. Larian’s response was direct: “Spawn of Bhaal or not, maybe it’s time to stop pointing fingers.”

The most plausible explanation is that a large chunk of non-Dark Urge evil playthroughs involve killing Alfira as part of leaning into a villain roleplay, but the raw number is still surprising. There are a lot of people out there who made that call completely voluntarily.

Most Used Weapons in the Final Battle

When it came time to face the Netherbrain in the final confrontation, players’ weapon choices revealed a clear community consensus — and a few spectacular outliers.

• Gontr Mael (legendary bow) — 33.4 million uses
• Balduran’s Giantslayer (greatsword) — 25.5 million uses
• Staff of the Emperor — 22.6 million uses
• Gortash’s Fabricated Arbalest — 20.3 million uses
• Hellfire Hand Crossbow — 19.6 million uses

The Gontr Mael bow leads by nearly 10 million over the second-place Giantslayer, which makes sense — it’s one of the most powerful weapons in the game, dealing heavy damage, applying Haste to the wielder, and carrying a chance to cast Guiding Bolt. For a fight that demands consistent damage output, it’s as optimised a choice as you’re going to find.

Larian also called out the opposite end of the spectrum — players who brought a charcuterie board to a fight with a giant brain. The studio didn’t elaborate on the numbers here, but the sheer acknowledgment that this happened enough to be worth noting is something.

The weapon deep dive gets weirder. The Blood of Lathander has been used in combat a staggering 670,474,592 times across all playthroughs — making it one of the most consistently deployed weapons in the entire game despite the Crèche being an optional area. The Twist of Fortune morningstar has appeared in 28,208,396 combats, which Larian suspects comes from players using the Blood Money action by reverse-pickpocketing gold onto enemies before caving their skulls in with it. A classic strategy.

On the truly niche end: the Nutbuster (yes, a stone) was deployed in exactly 2 combats in the Crèche. The rusty Poo-Scraper — technically a dagger — was willingly brought into battle 4 times across all of Act 3. Whoever you are: Larian sees you, and so do we.

The Weirdest Player Habit Stats

Beyond the murder stats and weapon choices, Larian pulled out a collection of genuinely odd data points about how some players engage with the game.

• A handful of players have accumulated upwards of 560 manual saves in a single playthrough — a number that suggests either extreme caution, extreme anxiety, or both
• Fewer than 1% of players amassed 180,000 gold in a single playthrough, or managed to spend more than 120,000 gold — Larian equates the latter to roughly 24 naked statues bought from Stoney and Boney at the Circus
• More than 30,000 players fought the Netherbrain while their entire party was drunk — the Shadow-Cursed Lands, the Lower City, and Wyrm’s Crossing are the top three zones where players got everyone blitzed before entering combat, and Larian suspects Drunken Master Monks are partially responsible
• Exactly 34,204 players took a swig before the Netherbrain fight specifically while equipping the Punch-Drunk Bastard greatclub, which is committed bit energy

The 9:16 Situation

Larian saved some of the most eyebrow-raising data for the hardware statistics section. 114 players chose to experience one of the most expansive RPGs ever made in a 1:1 square aspect ratio, possibly recreating the feel of old-school CRPGs from a different era. Strange, but arguably charming.

Less charming: 9,008 players played Baldur’s Gate 3 in a 9:16 vertical aspect ratio — which is effectively portrait mode, the way you’d hold a phone to record a TikTok. Larian called these players out directly, and honestly the implication is correct: someone out there was fighting the Netherbrain on a second monitor while theoretically doing something else entirely. It’s over 9,000, and it’s all of them.

500 Million Mod Downloads and Counting

On the modding side, the numbers are staggering. Baldur’s Gate 3 has crossed 500 million mod downloads through Larian’s official in-game mod manager across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, with 13,000 unique mods created and uploaded. When combined with the separately tracked 509 million downloads on Nexus Mods, the game has actually surpassed one billion total mod downloads — making it the seventh most-downloaded game in Nexus Mods’ entire history, and the highest-ranked title released in the last decade.

Larian received its final major content patch — Patch 8 — back in April 2025, so the studio has been out of the picture for well over a year. The modding community has been carrying the game ever since, and a billion downloads later, that’s clearly working out fine. Two mods even made it into Larian’s own anniversary infographics: the Bald Mod and the Car Wildshape Mod, both by creator wa_rouk.

What’s Next for Baldur’s Gate

With Larian now fully focused on its next RPG — a new Divinity title being built on an original system rather than D&D — the question of who makes Baldur’s Gate 4 remains genuinely open. Wizards of the Coast, who owns the D&D licence, is internally working on a game called Warlock, which is an action adventure title revealed at the end of 2025. On the external developer front, Owlcat Games — the studio behind Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader — has been mentioned as a potential candidate, though the studio is currently occupied with Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy and Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Nothing is confirmed.

In the meantime, the three-year stat drop is a reminder of just how deeply Baldur’s Gate 3 embedded itself in gaming culture. A billion mod downloads, tens of millions of NPC deaths, 33.4 million bow wielders, four Poo-Scraper combats, and an unknowable number of people playing in portrait mode while pretending to work. Three years in, and this community is absolutely not done.

For more gaming news this week, check out our look at the Guild Wars 3 playable species confirmed for launch and Peak’s Final Ascent update arriving August 11.