Slay The Spire 2 launched in early access last week and is already one of the most popular games in Steam history.
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Online storefront Steam is the largest PC game platform with more than 75 per cent of the market share and more than 132 million monthly users.
Last week, the long-awaited sequel to 2017 cult classic roguelike deckbuilder Slay The Spire was released in early access on Steam and within a few days, had achieved a concurrent player count of 574,638 (via SteamDB). That makes it one of Steam’s most popular ever releases.
Steam’s highest ever concurrent player counts:
PUBG: Battlegrounds (3,257,248)
Black Myth: Wukong (2,415,714)
Palworld (2,101,867)
Counter-Strike 2 (1,862,531)
Monster Hunter Wilds (1,384,608)
Lost Ark (1,325,305)
Dota 2 (1,295,114)
Cyberpunk 2077 (1,054,388)
Elden Ring (953,426)
Banana (917,272)
New World: Aeternum (913,634)
Hogwarts Legacy (879,308)
Baldur’s Gate 3 (875,343)
Battlefield 6 (747,440)
Goose Goose Duck (702,845)
Marvel Rivals (644,269)
Apex Legends (624,473)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (587,150)
Path Of Exile 2 (578,569)
Slay The Spire 2 (574,638)
What’s more impressive is that the original Slay The Spire’s concurrent player peak was just 57,025. “This is insane. I expected it to be popular, but not this popular,” wrote one fan on Reddit. “It’s impossible to understate how influential Slay The Spire has been on the gaming industry. Sooooo many games have taken inspiration from Slay The Spire over the past nine years,” added another.
More than 400,000 people are currently playing Slay The Spire 2 and the game has an “overwhelming positive” user review score.
“The developers crushed it here by doing exactly what you should for a sequel – take the original, spruce it up, add a bunch of new stuff and storylines and don’t get in the players’ way of having fun. Just as hard as the original, yet so much more opportunity to play different builds with each character. Another masterpiece in the works,” wrote one player. “Slay the Spire was already one of the best in its genre. Slay The Spire 2 easily builds on top of it,” said another.
Following its huge launch, Slay The Spire 2 developers made a playful dig at ambitious AAA shooter Marathon on social media, which also launched last week. “Don’t let small indie passion projects like this pass you by just because Slay The Spire 2 is out,” Mega Crit wrote on X. Co-founder Casey Yano later admitted that the Tweet “seems a bit meaner than it was intended,” before adding that he “didn’t think we’d actually pass Marathon in concurrent users.”
Slay The Spire 2 is set to stay in early access for at least a year.
In other news, the Atomic Heart soundtrack is coming to vinyl for the first time following the announcement of the fourth and final expansion.
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