The amount of time I spend thinking about aspect ratios would potentially be a cause for concern if it wasn’t, admittedly, an unquestionably dull thing to think about for most people. Yet I continue to do so as the way we choose to frame any kind of image is an important one, as there are all manner of connotations to such a choice. In video games, we’re even sometimes able to make that choice thanks to the power of the fabled “options menu.” As it turns out, 9008 people made the choice to play Baldur’s Gate 3 in 9:16, i.e. in portrait mode, and I would so desperately love to talk to each and every one of them about this decision.
This particular piece of data comes from developer Larian, who are back with a bevy of numbers denoting various actions people have taken in the game since the game was released. We’ll get to some of the other tidbits from this data in a moment, for now I want to focus on these 9008 people who played in 9:16, as well as the 114 who played it in 1:1, i.e. a perfect square. I want to try and interpret some rationale here, because there must be some reason, right?
For those that played in 9:16, I think there’s one of three options. The first, and most cynical, is that they’re so used to spending time on their phone that every screen in their life must be in the portrait position lest they have to cock their heads at a 90 degree angle. The next is that it’s something to do with the game’s isometric layout, and allows for some kind of tactical approach that I’m not personally aware of.
And the last, and what I think is most likely: their second monitor is set in portrait mode and they couldn’t be bothered to move it around. For those playing in 1:1, I’m going to go out on a limb and say considering how few people it was, it’s the kind of nerd who played the game on an old, 90’s era computer monitor for the vibes (nerd said lovingly, I have played Bloodborne on a CRT before).
Right, how about some other stats? Apparently 500 million mods have been downloaded, which is quite a staggering number. Some guy called Zevlor, who, as a person that has never played the game before, I have never heard of (probably because no one’s horny for him) has died 12.31 million times, the most of any story NPC.
More non-Dark Urge players have murdered Alfira than Dark Urge players (is that bad? Sounds bad). Less than 1% of people have managed to acquire all 180,000 gold in a single playthrough. And just a small handful of folks made more than 1400 quicksaves in a single playthrough. As Larian themselves ask, “You doing okay there?” Some fun statistics! But if you’re one of those portrait or square people, please let me know why, I’d love to be right.