A new shooter is gaining on Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders on Steam's top sellers, and it's only $18: Escape from Duckov is a PvE riff on Escape from Tarkov with 180,000 peak players

The latest Steam mega-hit is Escape from Duckov, a PvE looter shooter partly parodying Escape from Tarkov but largely doing its own thing to great success.

Escape from Duckov, released on October 16, is the latest from developer Team Soda of Snake Force and Soda Crisis of fame. Published by China's bilibili, and now the publisher's highest-rated Steam release, the game combines top-down shootouts with extraction shooter-adjacent "raids" and scavenging, all done up in cute ducky wrapping. And boy has it worked.

According to a Steam post from Team Soda, Escape from Duckov had sold over 500,000 copies as of October 19. At the time of writing, it's currently the fourth top-selling game on Steam's rankings, right behind three variably massive shooters: actual extraction shooter Arc Raiders, Counter-Strike 2, and 7 million seller Battlefield 6 at the top.

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SteamDB reports that it has 117,473 people playing right now, with a concurrent peak of 182,509 earlier today. Holy flock.

Escape from Duckov is sitting at 5,969 Steam user reviews at the time of writing, averaging a sterling 95% positive. Bilibili's backing has no-doubt helped – over 4,200 of those reviews are in Simplified Chinese, indicating the game has a huge Chinese audience – but folks the world over have demonstrably clicked with the cute and simple formula.

I'm sure it also helps that this game is only $18 at full price, and just $15.83 at its current 12% discount (available through October 30).

"This game is like quack, can't put it down," writes Steam reviewer Chad. (Damn, I was gonna make that joke.) We were also quite taken with the game during its Steam Next Fest showing earlier this year, with it even winning over our extraction shooter-averse Ali.

With five maps, over 50 weapons, an upgradeable base, skill tree and crafting progression, and multiple difficulty modes, Escape from Duckov feels precision-engineered to be hard to put down. The devs reckon you'll find "50+ hours of content for a single playthrough," with Steam Workshop support offering player-made additions for those who want them.

Some Chinese devs played Stardew Valley and loved it, but wanted something more "carefree" – now their anime life sim RPG is tearing up Steam Next Fest, and it's hard to put down.