Dev of chill sailing game "blown away" as player count jumps over 282,000% following 2.4 million downloads as Epic Games Store freebie

The chill and appropriately titled sailing game Sail Forth was originally released in December 2022 on basically all platforms, but it was only recently given out for free via the Epic Games Store on PC. This freebie went live on January 11, 2024, and that same day the game's player count had apparently jumped a staggering 282,041% according to creator David Evans, who says he's been "blown away" by the response.

In a tweet posted January 13, Evans added: "Sail Forth has been downloaded 2.4 million times now on Epic (for free lol). Pretty blown away by this, I knew a lot of new players would be joining but this is insane."

For a very imperfect comparison, Sail Forth currently has 357 (93% positive) user reviews on Steam. The correlation between Steam reviews and actual sales can vary wildly, and Sail Forth is available on consoles as well, so from this figure alone I can't confidently speculate as to how many people played it pre-Epic freebie. I just know that 357 is a much, much smaller number than 2.4 million, which goes to show much exposure these Epic Games Store deals can bring in. 

Sail Forth is one of two so-called "big" games from Evans and his one-man studio Festive Vector, the other being Bicyclism Extra Pedal according to his website. Sail Forth is getting support to this day, with a new patch for Steam and Epic dropping just yesterday, January 16. It also received a DLC pack ahead of its Epic Games Store deal, called Sail Forth: Maelstrom. 

This massive influx of new Sail Forth players has naturally yielded a surge of feedback as well, and Evans picked through the chaff to dig out the true gems. Dread it, run from it, but "just add multiplayer" arrives all the same.

2023 was also a good year for sailing games thanks in large part to Dredge, a GOTY-contender horror fishing game that got its first DLC in November.