Nioh 3 shatters record for the series' highest Steam concurrent player count through the power of actually launching on PC simultaneously for once

Running at a yokai with a long neck in Nioh 3 while holding a four-blade windmill shuriken — (Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

Nioh 3 already has the highest player count of the series on PC, which goes to show that a simultaneous release is a great idea.

Looking over on SteamDB (first spotted by VG247) the concurrent player count for Nioh 3 is something I've had to constantly re-write because it literally won't stop going up so far. When I first looked at it, the game was boasting a player count of 53,237, however at the time of writing it's at 70,186 players which was as of one-minute ago. Regardless, the 53,000 high already beat out its predecessors, as Nioh peaked at 10,649 when it first released on PC back in 2018, and Nioh 2 fared a lot better at 41,325 with its 2021 launch.

Nioh 3 is notably the first time a game in the series launched simultaneously on PC, as the prior entries were both PS4 exclusives for the majority of their first years. And this has clearly worked out well for the PC release, both in terms of players who would typically pick the game up on a PC no longer having to spring on a console version, and allowing PC players to get in on that irresistible day one FOMO / hype.

Reception to Nioh 3 has been solid as its 86 Metacritic score is ahead of 2020's Nioh 2 (which got 85), although it wasn't quite as well received as the original game which sits at a score of 88. But as one of the first big AAA releases of the year, and the highest-rated game of 2026 as of right now, Nioh 3 is off to a great start, and that may be the thing that sends the series to even greater heights.