Valheim is on a trajectory like nothing we’ve ever seen. The Viking-themed indie survival game has been shooting up the Steam charts, selling 3 million copies in an unheard-of 17 days. And people aren’t just buying it on a whim; they’re actively playing it, too. On Sunday, the game reached 500,000 simultaneous players, according to SteamDB, leaving the charred remains of four other all-time Steam player count records in its wake.
As of Friday, February 19th, the game had already passed Postal and Grand Theft Auto V to become the ninth most-played game on Steam at peak, but now it’s surpassed the records for Among Us, Life is Strange 2, Fallout 4, and Terraria to reach the No. 5 slot, according to Steam Charts.
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It’s going to be an uphill battle from here: the four records it broke were in the 400,000 range, but the next record is the 830,000-player record Cyberpunk 2077 set at its December launch. To beat Dota 2 and Counter-Strike, it’d have to cross 1.3 million players.
It seems completely doable, though, considering how rapidly the game has already grown, and the way it can suck you (and your friends) in again and again. There’s a huge randomly generated world to explore and loads to craft and build, with up to 10 people cooperatively working together. It’s fun, and with a remarkably shallow learning curve and a $20 price tag, I’d be surprised if it bottoms out anytime soon.
Valheim was built by a five-person team, but they tell PC Gamer they’ll be hiring up now.
