Crimson Desert looks set to hit big Steam concurrent player numbers after it broke into the top three most-played games on Valve’s platform just minutes after launch.
Pearl Abyss’ hotly anticipated open world action game had looked set for a huge launch, given it was at the top of the Steam sales chart and had secured 3 million Steam Wishlists ahead of today’s release.
Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, said earlier this week that Crimson Desert was “on track for a killer launch on Steam.” According to Alinea Analytics estimates, Crimson Desert was approaching 400,000 pre-launch copies sold on Steam, representing gross revenues of over $20 million. “This game could really blow up, if it sticks the landing,” Elliott added.
On Steam, only eternally popular Valve games Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 have more players. At the time of this article’s publication, Crimson Desert was on its way to 250,000 concurrent players on Steam. Crimson Desert is also out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, so the total number of players will be even higher than Steam suggests, but neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public.
The launch comes after Pearl Abyss, publisher and developer of Crimson Desert, saw its stock price plunge nearly 30% in what was seen as a reaction to review scores.
We’ve got plenty more on Crimson Desert, including patch notes for its day one update, IGN’s Crimson Desert Review So Far, and our launch interview with Will Powers. We’ve also got a Crimson Desert PC performance review.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
