Monster Hunter Wilds is already breaking Steam chart records mere hours after its PC release.
The Capcom-developed monster-hunting RPG franchise is back, bringing with it a whole swath of both new and returning hulking creatures for players to pursue in the wild.
In early goings, Wilds faired splendidly with critics, earning a stellar 89% on OpenCritic and being praised for its sprawling open-world, colorful catalog of monsters to hunt, and level of accessibility in a series that has traditionally had a pretty steep learning curve.
Monster Hunter Wilds Makes Steam History
In its first few hours on PC, Monster Hunter Wilds already put its stamp in the Steam chart record books.
Capcom's latest entry in its long-running monster-hunting franchise climbed to sixth place on the Steam chart for all-time peak concurrent players (via SteamDB)
Wilds peaked just hours after its PC release at 1.31 million concurrent players on Steam, making it the biggest Monster Hunter PC launch ever and doing enough to supplant hit titles like Dota 2, Elden Ring, and Cyberpunk 2077.
While that 1.3 million concurrent number is impressive, the game's story may not yet have been fully written. It is still quite early in Wilds' life, and there is a chance that during its launch weekend (and in the days following), it climbs even higher on the chart.
For comparison, the last major PC title in the franchise, Monster Hunter World (which came to Steam several months after its early 2018 console release), only ever reached a peak concurrent player count of just over 334,000.
And that came despite excellent DLC that came to the last game, including plenty of ultra-viral skins like the Monster Hunter movie tie-in Mila Jovovich costume.
The next closest challenger Wilds has on the all-time concurrent list is Amazon Games' MMORPG Lost Ark, which peaked at 1.33 million concurrent players in February 2022.
With only a difference between the numbers of roughly 180,000, there is a real chance Monster Hunter Wilds leap-frogs that title and claims the number-five spot for itself in the coming days (or maybe even hours).
For it to get any higher than that, something miraculous would need to happen, though.
The next highest peak concurrent is Counter-Strike 2 with over 1.8 million, meaning nearly 500,000 more Steam players would need to hop on all at the same time as well as enough to reach that 1.3 million concurrent figure that got Wilds as high on the list as it currently is.
Below is the full top-10 of the all-time peak concurrent players Steam charts:
- PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS (3.26 million)
- Black Myth: Wukong (2.42 million)
- Palworld (2.10 million)
- Counter-Strike 2 (1.81 million)
- Lost Ark (1.33 million)
- Monster Hunter Wilds (1.31 million)
- Dota 2 (1.30 million)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (1.05 million)
- Elden Ring (953,426)
- Banana (917,272)
Monster Hunter Wilds is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
