Normally, my instinct upon witnessing a big bug is to crush its body with my little slipper, but I'll give Hollow Knight: Silksong a pass since it deserves one – the desperately anticipated Metroidvania sequel has now surpassed 535,000 concurrent players as of writing, making it one of the most extravagant launches in Steam history.
For comparison, permanently "most-played" games like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Path of Exile 2 (clearly, people love a sequel!) have respectively reached all-time peaks of 1.9 million, 1.3 million, and about 579,000 according to SteamDB. These titles are flanked by similar games and numbers; hero shooter Apex Legends had a peak of approximately 624,000 players, hero shooter Marvel Rivals once broke 644,000 concurrents, battle royale PUBG once had a staggering 3.3 million players, and so on.
I'll also throw in a special mention for the clicker game Banana, which, at one point, had practically 1 million people clicking on a banana.
Silksong stands out from these peers like a moth under a lamp light. It's not a free-to-play casual game or all-out, triple A warfare – it's a $20 indie with a perhaps frighteningly infatuated fanbase, and these fans make its launch day success feel earned, and they make it special.
I'm expecting Silksong to set another concurrent player record for itself soon. Earlier today, two hours after its release, the game was able to clear Hollow Knight's top player count of 72,916 – set only yesterday – by hurtling to about 112,000 players. If half-a-million of the clinically Silksane could beat that number after just a few more hours of opportunity, even while facing serious e-shop outages, think of what they could do at their full potential.
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