Free-to-play Squid Game imitator rockets up the Steam charts, again, after VTuber team-up

A Crab Game character swings a bat at the screen

(Image credit: Dani)

A free-to-play Squid Game imitator has seen a rapid resurgence on Steam, and it appears that, once again, it comes off the back of some VTuber attention.

At time of writing, the cheekily-named Crab Game has a concurrent peak of 41,985 on Steam, as per SteamDB. That’s not quite as high as the record 56,106 players set 15 months ago, though it’s the most interest the free game has seen since November 2021.

Scouring around the internet to find the reason behind the resurgence swiftly leads to YouTube and a recent Crab Game involving around 12 VTubers from groups Xsoleil and Iluna, though not all of them streamed the collaboration. What you get is the typical banter between folks playing a game, albeit with the added value of anime husbandos and waifus on screen. If you fancy seeing it for yourself, someone has wrangled together a highlight video of all the choice moments.

Games often see the benefit of extra attention when an influencer brings them to the attention of their audience – one Among Us-like has been sitting cosily in Steam’s top 10 following one stream of a BTS member playing it. The influence of VTubers proves no different. Just recently, the popular Steam stalwart Deep Rock Galactic got a shot in the arm when one Hololive VTuber with nearly 1.3 million subscribers on YouTube gave it a whirl on stream. Deep Rock Galactic remains popular enough to stand on its own two feet, though the reaction of its community was endearing regardless. As we’ve also recently reported, another popular VTuber came to Final Fantasy 14 only to be bombarded by oodles of fans.

Crab Game has plenty going for it as an amusing spin on Squid Game and has already seen plenty of influencer coverage due to folk trying to create content around the show. That said, given everything, the attention of 12 VTubers can’t hurt.

Looking for something else to check out? Here are 20 Netflix shows to watch after Squid Game and Hellbound.

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.