Home Black Myth: Wukong smashes Steam player-count records on launch day

Black Myth: Wukong smashes Steam player-count records on launch day

tl;dr

  • Black Myth: Wukong hit 2 million concurrent players on Steam, making it the most-played single-player game ever.
  • This milestone also makes it the second-highest concurrent user total on Steam, surpassing Counter-Strike 2.
  • The game outperformed other recent hits like Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring in peak concurrent users.

Black Myth: Wukong is easily the most-played game on Steam at the moment, hitting an eye-goggling peak of 2.15 million concurrent players at the time of writing. That figure, according to SteamDB, is the second-highest all-time concurrent user total, beating even Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2.

The figure of 2,151,942 concurrent users for Black Myth: Wukong, it almost goes without saying, is the most ever for a single-player only game on Steam. (Black Myth: Wukong is also available on PlayStation 5; player count there is unavailable, or at least has not yet been announced by Sony Interactive Entertainment or developer Game Science). It hit that total around 9:15 a.m. EDT and seems sure to climb throughout the day.

The all-time record for Steam concurrent users is held by PUBG: Battlegrounds, set in January 2018 about a week after the battle royale launched on Steam. Valve-published mainstays Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 have not broken 2 million concurrents.

Counter-Strike 2 reached its peak of 1,818,773 concurrents in May 2023 (the game launched in September 2023 this was during its “Limited Test” phase); Dota 2, which dates to 2013, saw its record peak of 1,295,114 in March 2016.

SteamCharts, another source of player data, had not updated at time of writing to account for Black Myth: Wukong’s player totals.

How does Black Myth: Wukong compare to other single-player hits?

Among other single-player only games, Black Myth: Wukong dwarfs other heavily anticipated, heavily played releases on Steam from the previous four years. Cyberpunk 2077, released December 2020, peaked at 1,054,388 concurrents on launch day. Elden Ring, which launched in February 2022, peaked at 953,426 users, also on its release date. And Hogwarts Legacy, which came out Feb. 10, 2023, likewise saw its all time peak of 879,308 at launch.

So this means that whatever record Black Myth: Wukong sets, it will likely be set today, as it’s a single-player game with no live service component.

Game Science supposedly has plans for expansions should the game sell well, but has not confirmed or finalized that roadmap publicly. Elden Ring’s heavily anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC launched June 21, boosting its concurrent count sevenfold (to 781,261) that week but still not breaking 1 million.

Other Black Myth: Wukong pages you may like:

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Owen Good
Gaming Editor (US)

Owen Good is a 15-year veteran of video games writing, also covering pop culture and entertainment subjects for the likes of Kotaku and Polygon. He is a Gaming Editor for ReadWrite working from his home in North Carolina, the United States, joining this publication in April, 2024. Good is a 1995 graduate of North Carolina State University and a 2000 graduate of The Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, in New York. A second-generation newspaperman, Good's career before covering video games included daily newspaper stints in North Carolina; in upstate New York; in Washington, D.C., with the Associated Press; and…

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