I don't know what's worse - the 4,000 Baldur's Gate 3 sicko who beat the RPG's Honour Mode at level 1, or the 30,000 who did it with an objectively terrible build

Honour Mode is Baldur's Gate 3's biggest challenge - a permadeath option where the difficulty is dialled way up and a single party wipe means starting the game from scratch. Which is why I was quite so surprised to learn that 40,000 players managed to beat it with the D&D equivalent of hands tied behind their backs.

In the new stats released to celebrate Baldur's Gate 3's second anniversary, developer Larian revealed that 500,000 players have beaten Honour Mode at one time or another. Of those, it said, more than 45,000 chose to do so in…suboptimal ways.

The slightly easier version of those challenging challenge runs saw 31,180 players beat Honour Mode as a Jack of All Trades. Riffing off a class feature of D&D's Bards, this Baldur's Gate 3 achievement asked players to multiclass 12 different times, forgoing many of the more powerful class bonuses as they stitched all 12 Baldur's Gate 3 classes together. It's an approach that we billed as "the most nightmarish D&D build imaginable" ahead of release, so to see it conquer Honour Mode is testament to some impressive players.

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Jack of All Trades might be a tough way to complete the game, but at least it offers some bonus hitpoints to play with and plenty of class features to help you improvise your way out of sticky situations as you progress to max level. By contrast, the way in which 4,647 Honour Mode players tackled the challenge appeared far, far more difficult.

Larian says that those brave souls managed to beat Honour Mode "using only a level 1 character." I can only imagine that's only possible with a fair bit of sneaking along a very carefully-planned route, as many of the Honour Mode bosses are specifically designed to rock your world even if you're actually at an appropriate level for the fight. I'm actually kind of shocked that so many players have made their way through Honour Mode like this, but we're looking at a feat that's only been accomplished by less than 1% of Honour Mode winners.

Larian's been sharing plenty of other unhinged build options to celebrate. There's the 350 players who transformed simple-minded fighter Minsc into a Death Domain cleric, and the fact that Shadowheart is the most-respecced character in the game, because that Act 2 transformation meant that it was time to leave Trickery behind.

Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director is "so insanely excited" for Larian's next RPG, but don't expect it any time soon: "This s**t ain't cooked in an air fryer bro sorry got nothing for you right now"