New World topped the player charts during its first weekend on Steam, beating out the platform’s biggest multiplayer behemoths.
During its first weekend on Steam, New World topped the player charts, beating out multiplayer behemoths Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. New World is a new MMORPG from Amazon Game Studios, in which players are shipwrecked on an uncharted island rife with supernatural forces. Mid-seventeenth-century aesthetics heavily influence the game’s locations. It had a successful beta in June, with over 190,000 concurrent New World players on the first day of its release.
When the beta for New World was released on Steam this summer, many players quickly pointed out the game’s flaws, such as server instability and the ability to brick high-end GPUs. While technical issues are expected in any beta, Amazon Game Studios wisely responded by delaying the game’s release by nearly a month to focus on the polish above. Despite these setbacks and delays, players do not appear to have been deterred from purchasing the game on release, nor has it tarnished its reputation: the new MMORPG is so popular that the developers have barred players from creating characters on the overcrowded New World servers.
According to NME, New World had over 913,000 concurrent players in its first weekend, making it the most popular game on Steam. This means that the game ranked higher than Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which are always the top two games on any given weekday. Due to the long queue times on each server, it appears that this success is unprecedented; however, the developers are taking steps to address the problem by implementing systems that detect inactive players. Another option they are offering is for players to switch servers if they are experiencing long queues.
New World’s success, on the other hand, has signalled a comeback for MMORPGs. MMORPGs have been considered a dying landscape for a long time, with only a few games keeping it alive. New World is the first AAA MMO in years to be released. With the success of Final Fantasy XIV and the addition of New World to the genre, fans are witnessing a resurgence in the genre’s popularity.
It’s worth noting that, due to the excitement surrounding new releases, many of them see a spike in the player count during the launch window, and New World is no exception. It’ll be interesting to see if it can keep this number once it gets into a routine, as any live-service game or MMORPG does. Most games, such as New World, will see a spike in player counts when new content is released, followed by a drop to a lower population number that stays the same until the next content release. However, the game’s success in just its first week is a positive sign for New World’s player base and suggests continued success.
The PC version of New World is now available.
Source: NME
