Amazon MMO Lost Ark already has fifth-largest Steam concurrent record ever
UPDATE: Now second-biggest peak on Steam ever, behind only PUBG.
UPDATE 14/2/22: Lost Ark's dominance on Steam continued over the course of this past weekend, with a player peak of 1.32 million people. This makes it Steam's second-biggest concurrently played game ever, behind PUBG.
These numbers have caused some issues, however. The Amazon-published free-to-play MMO has placed users in queues to alleviate server strain - something developer Smilegate has now apologised for and revealed a plan to ease.
ORIGINAL STORY 12/2/22: Smilegate's new MMO, Lost Ark, published by Amazon Games, has hit almost one million concurrent players within 24 hours of its release.
In spite of struggling servers that couldn't keep pace with demand, that means Lost Ark currently sports the fifth-biggest concurrent peak of Steam players ever, following PUBG, CS:GO, Dota 2, and Cyberpunk 2077 respectively.
According to SteamDB, Lost Ark hit a 24-hour peak overnight, clocking up a staggering 984,111 players and topping Amazon's prior release, New World's, peak of 913,000 simultaneous players (thanks, PCGN).
"I love this trend of MMOs making you feel really powerful from the beginning," Bertie wrote in his article, Lost Ark is blowing up and I can totally see why.
"It's so refreshing, and joyful. There's none of this power austerity, none of this 'yes you can be powerful but you'll have to earn it, young one'. Games like Black Desert Online and now Lost Ark just want to be fun right away, and it's great."