It’s the sort of headline that makes you do a double-take: two copies of Baldur’s Gate 3 have been officially purchased inside Vatican City. The news first broke when Larian Studios’ Director of Publishing, Michael Douse, casually dropped the stat on social media, and the internet, predictably, lost its collective mind. This tiny city-state, home to just 764 souls, now boasts a solid 0.2 percent player base for one of the most sprawling role-playing games ever made. Not bad for a place better known for Swiss Guards and the Sistine Chapel than for mind flayers and tiefling bards. Douse himself added fuel to the fire, joking that the sole remaining copy on someone’s wishlist was probably just the Pope waiting for a free minute. “Bet it’s absolutely gnarly,” he added, wondering out loud what kind of mod list a Vatican citizen might be running. The whole affair has become a blessed scandal of the most wholesome kind.
By 2026, Baldur’s Gate 3 has already carved itself a permanent niche in gaming history. Since its full launch in August 2023, the game has smashed every expectation Larian had. Over 10 million copies moved within months, and that number has only swelled as word of mouth continued to spread like wildfire. It’s one of those rare titles that comes along and redefines what a genre can do – a proper knock-it-out-of-the-park moment. Awards have rained down on the studio, and even now, three years on, the community remains fiercely active, churning out mods, fan art, and elaborate theories about Shadowheart’s secret soft side. The Vatican statistic is just the cherry on top, proof that no corner of the globe is beyond the reach of a well-crafted Dungeons & Dragons experience.
Most of the game’s staying power comes from Larian’s relentless post-launch support. Remember Patch 7 in September 2024? That update was an absolute beast, finally bringing official mod support to the table. Suddenly, players could twist Faerûn into whatever shape they pleased without jumping through endless hoops. It also served up extra difficulty options and a slew of truly villainous endings, giving everyone yet another excuse to roll a new character and sink another hundred hours into the adventure. Console players got their own treat when the Baldur’s Gate 3 PlayStation 5 Pro Enhanced version arrived, pushing Quality mode to native 4K at 30 FPS and using PSSR to upscale Performance mode to a buttery 2160p at 60 FPS. Couch co-op sessions now run smoother than ever, even when the screen fills up with fireballs and summoned elementals. By the time 2026 rolled around, further patches and quality-of-life tweaks had made the game feel borderline timeless.
But the most delightful part of this whole saga is the mental image it conjures. Social media sleuths immediately started spinning yarns about Swiss Guards sneaking in a few hours of dungeon crawling after night patrols, or a cardinal debating whether to romance Karlach or Wyll. The idea that members of the Catholic Church might be spending their spare time navigating the morally grey waters of Baldur’s Gate 3 – a game where you can lie, cheat, and smooch your way through a devil-infested landscape – is the kind of irony that keeps the internet’s heart beating. Douse’s wish to see the Vatican mod list is genuine curiosity wrapped in a joke. Are they running aesthetic overhauls? More importantly, did someone install the mod that lets you adopt every stray animal in the game? The guesses are half the fun.
What lends this story extra legs is Larian’s own trajectory. The studio has long since confirmed that Baldur’s Gate 4 isn’t in the cards, instead pouring their heart and soul into two brand-new original IPs. That news initially stung for fans of the series, but by now the excitement for whatever comes next has reached a fever pitch. Meanwhile, recent leaks indicate that a native Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition release is headed to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, which would bring that masterpiece to a whole new generation of console players. And deep in the hearts of longtime fans, the hope for Divinity: Original Sin 3 still burns bright, even if it takes Larian another decade to make it happen. The studio has earned the kind of reputation where people stay up at night dreaming about what’s next, and the Vatican connection is just another reminder that their games already feel like a global phenomenon.
In the grand scheme of things, two copies sold in the world’s smallest state is a statistical blip. But it’s a blip that speaks volumes. It’s the type of tidbit that gets brought up at parties, shared in group chats, and passed around like a juicy secret. It has turned into a running gag, a lighthearted piece of trivia that humanizes both the game and the place. If anything, the fact that Baldur’s Gate 3 has a foothold literally inside the walls of Vatican City means the title has achieved a kind of cultural saturation that most entertainment products can only dream of. When you’ve infiltrated the holiest of microstates, you’ve essentially won. As Douse so perfectly put it, the mod list there would probably be gnarly indeed – and somewhere, a cleric with a guilty pleasure is nodding in agreement.