According to the latest community update from Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios, players of the recently-released RPG have collectively pet the dog Scratch over 400,000 times. Scratch is a recruitable pup that can be located in the forest areas of Baldur's Gate 3.
Baldur's Gate 3 entered early access at the beginning of the month, and while only the first twenty hours or so are available to play, many players have been diving in and discovering every secret that BG3 currently has to offer. Larian's community update earlier today revealed a number of statistics concerning player trends in early access, including romance, morality, and Scratch the dog.
The biggest point of Larian's update was to announce the latest patch for Baldur's Gate 3, but that was quickly followed by a series of statistical data recorded from players thus far. Larian previously used those statistics to chastise players over their tendency to make basic-looking human male player characters, but this week's data was more warmly received by the developer.
The leading information in the update concerned Scratch, a dog companion that many players have recruited during their Baldur's Gate 3 playthroughs. "Everyone knows you can pet the dog in Baldur’s Gate 3, but did you know the dog has been petted 400k times? Such a good boy deserves that many pets," Larian wrote in its update.
The update went on to share a few more trends within the BG3 community; for instance, while the Waterdhavian wizard companion, Gale, has been killed a record number of times within the game, he's also currently leading the pack as the most romanced Baldur's Gate 3 companion. Of course, his high mortality rate is probably related to the fact that there is a mini-plot that takes place upon his death, one that even those fond of Gale would want to experience.
The update also included statistics for the two main factions of this act of the game, tieflings and goblins. According to Larian, 74.85% of players sided with the tieflings, and 25.15% sided with Minthara and the goblins. As Larian put it, "Good outweighs evil, it seems."
It's not surprising so many early access Baldur's Gate players have taken time out of their gaming to stop and pet Scratch. He is a good boy, not to mention the fact that three of the five companions gain approval for every time the player character pets him. That makes two benefits of petting the dog: a sweet moment with the camp's pet, and an easy way to curry favor among the companions.
It does take a successful ability check to gain Scratch's loyalty, but judging by the statistics, players haven't had much of a problem leaping that hurdle.
Baldur's Gate 3 is available in early access for PC, iOS, and Stadia.
Source: Steam